Kepler Communications announced the availability of high-capacity on-orbit compute capabilities on its optical data relay constellation known as The Kepler Network.
Kepler said in a news release that their “on-orbit compute offering, customers may lease or purchase computing hardware onboard Kepler’s optical data relay satellites, enabling advanced on-orbit computing capabilities to support advanced processing, data storage, cloud compute, artificial intelligence, multi-sensor data fusion, and other use cases in space.”
In making the announcement Kepler said it had signed an agreement with Axiom Space has purchased “two initial on-orbit computing payloads.”
Axiom Space is in the process of designing and building a commercial space station as well as developing “orbital data center (ODC) infrastructure in low Earth orbit (LEO).” Axiom Space will use the two on-orbit computing payloads from Kepler as the “foundation” for its ODC.
Mina Mitry, chief executive officer and co-founder of Kepler Communications said, “Data requirements in space are growing exponentially and we are excited to offer our customers multiple solutions to send, store, and enhance their on-orbit data. Launching an on-orbit compute capacity enables our customers to extend terrestrial computing concepts into space to expand the possibilities of their mission.”
Jason Aspiotis, global director of in-space data and security at Axiom Space added, “Kepler is at the forefront of building a commercial optical data relay network. Deploying our initial ODC nodes on The Kepler Network will give Axiom Space’s ODC customers the ability to move their data to and from our nodes, providing an initial ODC offering for space-to-space and space-to-ground cloud computing and storage use cases.”