Last year, the European Union conducted a $2.1 million dollar study to gauge the feasibility and benefits of launching data centers into space. According to reports, the study concluded that “space-based data centers are technically, economically and environmentally feasible.” But what is driving this emerging need for data centers in space? What benefits could space-based data processing deliver that traditional, terrestrial data centers cannot?
Danny Sabour, VP of Sales and Marketing at Avalanche Technology – a memory solutions provider company – explained that the satellite industry is moving from a centralized model to a distributed model. “Large satellites are transitioning to small satellites,” said Sabour. “Now there are thousands of small satellites, and each small satellite is capable of collecting a lot of data. What do satellite designers do with the data? They sometimes reduce the data through local processing to look for relevant data.”
According to Ryan White, Director of Software and Digital Design at Kepler Communications, the need for data centers in space can be attributed in large part to the exponential growth in sensor-generated data from space missions that is surpassing the capacity of current RF and laser transmission infrastructure.
“Processing data in orbit reduces the need for extensive bandwidth and alleviates bottlenecks,” explained White. “Space-based applications like Earth observation and space domain awareness demand real-time data processing. On-orbit computing minimizes latency, which enables faster insights and actions.”
Terrestrial Data Centers vs Space Data Centers
As for addressing the reason why data centers on the ground are not leveraged to process data collected by satellites in space, Sabour has a simple answer. “This data cannot be transmitted back to Earth,” he said. “If you could send the data to Earth, then sure. But we have two mechanisms for sending data to Earth: Laser links and microwave links. Microwave is limited by frequency spectrum allocation by the government. There is no new spectrum. You can come up with new encoding methods, but you are still limited.”
As for laser links, Sabour explained that they require clear lines of sight. “As a result, cloud cover is a problem,” said Sabour. “You could have data communication geostationary hubs where all data is sent using laser links. Laser in space works great and you could interlink the satellites. The geostationary data communication hub can send the data back to Earth using a laser link.”
According to White, space-based data centers bypass terrestrial constraints, such as jurisdictional conflicts and energy consumption challenges associated with large ground facilities. “On-orbit processing condenses raw data into actionable insights before transmission, reducing backhaul costs and enabling more efficient operations, including autonomous tipping and cueing,” he said.
Satellite Requirements for Data Centers in Space
To fully enable and power data center processing in space, there are several communications and satellite network requirements that must first be put into place.
“Data centers in space will require a robust satellite network with low-latency interlinks and high-capacity downlinks,” said White. “This is critical for efficient data relay and communicationData centers in space also require satellite networks capable of supporting IP addressable devices at Layer 2 and Layer 3. This simplifies routing, enables efficient data exchange, and ensures seamless integration with terrestrial and cloud systems.”
For Sabour, he points back to laser links as one of the key enablers for data centers in space. “Once you have the laser links, you can run your terrestrial TCP over IP, and copy what we do on Earth,” he explained. “If a link fails, an adjacent link picks up the communication and the system survives and continues - which is what you want in space.”
The Challenges of Data Centers in Space
In addition to the satellite requirements that must be met, there are other limiting factors and challenges that need to be overcome to achieve the benefits of mass data processing in space and for data centers to be operational in orbit.
White cites thermal management in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) as one of the key obstacles, as well as ensuring cybersecurity for orbital operations and overcoming regulatory hurdles related to data sovereignty.
Jason Aspiotis, Global Director of In-Space Data and Security at Axiom Space, agreed that orbital data centers (ODCs) will require thermal management solutions. “ODCs will require a lot of heat rejection capabilities, especially as we strive for ODCs to provide a viable alternative to terrestrial data centers in the long-term,” he said. “While space offers abundant and continuous solar energy, managing waste heat in the vacuum of space must also be taken into consideration.”
According to Sabour, radiation tolerance will be a challenge that needs to be resolved. “Systems in space need to work in a radiation heavy environment, which is a limiting factor,” he said. “NOT AND (NAND) and typical solid-state drives (SSDs) won’t survive and will need to be supplemented with error detection and correction (EDAC) systems. Space designers have been doing this for decades. There is where magnetoresistive random-access memory (MRAM) data center buffers come into play to make NAND operate.”
Aspiotis echoed Sabour’s radiation concern and pointed to commercial off-the-shelf solutions (COTS) as a potential solution. “Space radiation can damage electronic components, especially in higher orbits, toward the Moon, and in deep space,” said Aspiotis. “Interestingly COTS hardware has proved resilient in LEO. Axiom Space is applying lessons learned from human spaceflight missions and developing the world’s first commercial space station to leverage radiation-tolerant COTS hardware in developing ODCs for LEO.”
Once these limiting factors have been overcome, data processing and connectivity on the ground are poised to be completely transformed by data centers in space. “Space-based data centers promise ultra-low latency processing, enhanced data security, and the ability to support novel applications in fields like Earth observation, IoT, and machine learning - revolutionizing ground-based workflows,” said White.
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