Not long ago, the idea of building data centers in orbit sounded like science fiction. In 2026, it's an active, well-funded race — and February marked a genuine milestone: the first month in history where multiple orbital data center operators simultaneously ran production workloads in space. The leading players and their approaches vary widely. Starcloud, a Redmond, Washington-based startup formerly known as Lumen Orbit, has the strongest claim to real operational hardware.