Flexcompute is working with Starlab Space and Voyager Technologies to simulate cabin airflow throughout the Starlab commercial space station. According to an October 6 announcement carried by PR Newswire, the collaboration has already completed an initial airflow study and is now turning to the movement and removal of crew-generated carbon dioxide.
The announcement says Flexcompute modeled Starlab’s full interior using Flow360, its GPU-native computational fluid dynamics platform, alongside its GeometryAI automated geometry-preparation engine. Flexcompute said the resulting study closely matched Starlab’s existing models while requiring a fraction of the time taken by traditional CFD tools.
Speed matters here because airflow in orbit behaves differently from airflow on Earth. PR Newswire’s report explains that warm air does not rise in microgravity, while exhaled carbon dioxide can remain around crew members without ventilation continually moving the cabin air. Starlab’s Environmental Control and Life Support System is intended to circulate fresh air across the station and maintain crew comfort.
The next stage will model where exhaled carbon dioxide travels inside the cabin and how the life-support system removes it, according to the announcement. The important shift is from validating full-interior airflow against existing models to examining a specific crew-safety scenario across the same environment.
Starlab is being developed as a commercial space station intended to succeed the International Space Station, PR Newswire reports. For that kind of crewed facility, the collaboration is applying GPU-based simulation not simply to the station’s structure, but to the less visible problem of keeping breathable air moving where astronauts actually live and work.
