OrbitsEdge, a FL-based space computing startup, will send its first space rated computing platform to orbit early next year.
OrbitsEdge’s Edge1 computing module will host a range of AI agents, including the first AI shoe designer in space.
Meet OrbitsEdge: Founded in 2018, OrbitsEdge’s long-term goal is to build data centers in space. These centers would handle the vast quantities of data being gathered and transmitted by EO and satcom companies, in a bid to compete with their terrestrial counterparts.
In the meantime, OrbitsEdge has developed a radiation shield and thermal management system to protect its edge-computing payload from the harsh environment of space.
- Edge1 is about 1U in size, weighs just under 2kg (4.4 lb), and takes 10 watts of power from its host satellite.
- Later models—Edge10 and Edge100—will increase these metrics by orders of magnitude.
- The system is built to perform at least 5T operations per second, far greater than the millions of operations per second that in-space computers typically handle.
OrbitsEdge’s plan is to demonstrate in-space AI capabilities to potential customers. The company aims to ensure that when the economics for data centers make sense—likely when something like SpaceX Starship drives down the cost of launch—they’re in the in-space computing ecosystem.
For the first few missions, satellite operators will plug an Edge system into their spacecraft to perform any AI tasks necessary for their mission—things like EO data analysis, RPO maneuvers, communication optimization, and satellite wellness checks.
The mission: For its demo mission next spring, OrbitsEdge is flying preloaded with an AI agent from Syntilay, a shoe company backed by Reebok co-founder Joe Foster that 3D prints AI-designed kicks.
While there’s no technical benefit for having the AI shoe designer in space, the mission will market the shoes as the first designed off-planet.
Other consumer products companies have found ways to tap space to market their products—LEGO partnered with Lunar Outpost to LEGO-ize Outpost’s lunar lander, for example, and Estée Lauder sent beauty products to the ISS. Syntilay, however, is the first to take the approach of making a real product from code originating in space.
“It gives regular guys on the street the ability to functionally participate in the space economy…How else can you do that?” OrbitsEdge founder and CTO Rick Ward told Payload.
Off the chain: To make the mission possible, OrbitsEdge and Syntilay have partnered with Copernic Space, a company building a marketplace for space assets on the blockchain.
Copernic Space is essentially creating a way for people to buy compute power on OrbitsEdge, and then own the assets created in space.
Copernic CEO Grant Blaisdell said their marketplace will open up funding sources for future digital space missions. Customers and investors can back digital space projects, and reap the rewards.
“With space, the big struggle isn’t as much the viability of the technology itself; it’s [the] viability of the economic model,” Blaisdell told Payload. “These space companies have to go and do rounds with the limited amount of space VCs and liquidity they have. But decentralize that risk, and [they can] attract a much broader liquidity and investor base.”
