Axiom Space reports that it will launch two data centers into Earth’s orbit before the end of this year. They are expected to process data from Kepler Communications’ optical observation satellites and will be the first step in bringing computing to space.
First Data Centers beyond the Earth
By the end of this year, the first two data centers outside the Earth’s orbit are expected to appear. They will be placed on the ODC 1 and ODC 2 satellites, which Axiom Space promises to put into orbit before the end of 2025.
The weight of each satellite will be 260 kg and they will be part of a constellation that will consist of 10 vehicles in total. They will be owned by the Canadian company Kepler Communications and will be designed to observe the Earth in the optical band. They promise to start launching by the end of this year as well.
Why are there data centers in orbit?
In general, the idea to put up data centers to process information that comes from surveillance satellites has been around for a long time. They collect a lot of data, but it all has to be processed. For this purpose, they are transmitted to Earth, and it takes an incredible amount of energy.
So, here came the idea of placing computing capabilities directly in space and thus making the whole system much more efficient. The first such data center was Snowcone, owned by Amazon Web Services, but it was Axiom Space that did the testing.
The demonstration was successful and now a full-fledged AxDCU-1 data center is set to go into orbit. It is planned to be placed aboard the Heaven-1 space station, which will be owned by Axiom Space. But it will be launched into space no earlier than next May. Therefore, they will experiment with what they have for the time being.
In general, processing data from satellites in orbital data centers is just the beginning. There are much more ambitious plans to take Earth’s calculations into space as well. It is believed that this will be an effective solution.
According to www.space.com
