COLORADO SPRINGS – Spacebilt announced an agreement April 8 with Phison to qualify a powerful data server on the
International Space Station. When the Large in Space Server (LiSS) launches in 2025, it will be the most powerful data server in orbit with “100 terabytes plus of data storage,” Dennis Wingo, Spacebilt chief technology officer told SpaceNews. “We are qualifying it so we can launch petabyte servers in the future.” LiSS is headed to an external platform on the Japanese Kibo module for six months of qualification testing. The server includes Microchip Technology’s Polarfire field-programmable gate array, an Nvidia Jetson computer designed for
Artificial intelligence applications and a Phison X1 solid-state drive. “Risk reduction activities such as the LiSS mission are crucial to our efforts to field advanced
spacecraft with compute, storage and communications systems for the21st century,” Wingo said in a statement. “Qualitative data of the type that we will obtain from this mission will allow us to move directly to flight for petabyte-level server systems for customers interested in advanced servers in space.” Sebastien Jean, Phison chief technology officer, said in a statement, “From data security, low latency, satellite communications to supporting emerging technologies, companies are eyeing a space-based data infrastructure. The LiSS project will play a key role in accelerating servers in space.” The upcoming data server qualification flight helps pave the way for Spacebilt’s multi-orbit logistics vehicle . “The 100 terabyte server is our risk-reduction prototype of our 1.2 pegabyte server that we are flying as part of our work with commercial customers and DIU under the multi-orbit logistics vehicle other transaction authority agreement,” Wingo said. In 2022, Santa Clara-based Spacebilt, formerly called Skycorp, flew a prototype Microchip Polarfire RISC-V Linux-based avionics package and data server on ISS. In 2024, Spacebilt plans to send a powerful data server to the
moon with a commercial customer. That mission includes an Armas radiation sensor and a Phison M.2 solid-state drive.