Space-Based Computing Systems

Space-based computing systems face unprecedented challenges including extreme radiation environments, thermal cycling, power constraints, and the impossibility of physical maintenance. This project develops novel computing architectures specifically designed for space deployment, focusing on autonomous satellite constellations, deep space missions, and orbital edge computing platforms.

Our research addresses the fundamental mismatch between terrestrial computing assumptions and space realities, developing systems that maintain computational capability while surviving radiation doses thousands of times higher than Earth-based systems can tolerate.

Radiation Resilience: Developing computing systems that can withstand galactic cosmic rays, solar particle events, and trapped radiation belt particles without catastrophic failure or performance degradation.

Thermal Management: Creating architectures that function across temperature ranges from -180°C to +125°C while managing heat dissipation in vacuum environments without convective cooling.

Power Efficiency: Optimizing computational performance per watt for solar-powered systems with limited energy budgets and intermittent power availability during eclipse periods.

Autonomous Operation: Designing systems capable of autonomous fault detection, isolation, recovery, and reconfiguration without ground-based intervention during communication blackouts.

Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) Constraints: Maximizing computational capability within strict mass and volume limitations imposed by launch vehicle constraints and mission requirements.

Space Microdatacenters: Distributed computing architectures that aggregate multiple small satellites into coherent computational clusters, enabling workload distribution and fault tolerance through redundancy.

Radiation-Hardened Processors: Novel microprocessor designs using temporal and spatial redundancy, error correction codes, and radiation-aware instruction scheduling to maintain operation in high-radiation environments.

Adaptive Thermal Computing: Dynamic performance scaling and computational migration techniques that maintain system operation across extreme temperature variations while preserving mission-critical functionality.

Edge Computing in Orbit: On-board data processing capabilities that reduce downlink requirements by performing computation at the point of data collection, enabling real-time decision making for time-sensitive applications.

Fault-Tolerant System Architecture: Hierarchical fault management systems with graceful degradation capabilities that prioritize mission-critical functions during component failures.

Current Mission Applications

• Earth Observation: Real-time processing of hyperspectral and multispectral imagery for climate monitoring, disaster response, and agricultural analysis
• Deep Space Exploration: Autonomous navigation and scientific data processing for missions beyond reliable communication range
• Satellite Constellations: Distributed computing across hundreds of small satellites for global communications and sensing

Future Space Economy

This research enables the emerging space economy by providing the computational infrastructure necessary for manufacturing in space, asteroid mining operations, and permanent space settlements. By solving fundamental computing challenges in space environments, we enable a new class of space-based applications previously considered impossible.

The techniques developed for space computing also benefit terrestrial extreme environment applications including arctic research stations, deep ocean platforms, and nuclear facility monitoring systems.

Our research is conducted in partnership with NASA Ames Research Center and multiple aerospace industry partners, ensuring that developed technologies meet real mission requirements. We validate our approaches through:

• Radiation Testing: Component and system-level validation using cyclotron facilities and gamma ray sources to simulate space radiation environments
• Thermal Vacuum Testing: Verification of operation across space temperature ranges in vacuum chambers
• CubeSat Demonstrations: Flight validation of technologies through small satellite missions that serve as technology demonstrators
• Ground-Based Testbeds: Earth-based simulation environments that replicate space conditions for iterative design validation

Current technology readiness levels range from TRL 4-6, with multiple technologies approaching flight readiness for upcoming NASA missions and commercial satellite deployments.