In-space computing startup Edge Aerospace landed a contract under ESA’s Space Cloud program to study the future of orbital data centers.
Under the agreement, announced today, the Luxembourg-based company will develop an architecture and utilize-case road-map for orbital data centers. The company will:
- Study the commercial viability of orbital-compute power;
- Uncover ways Europe can leverage the new capability for commercial, civil, and defense applications.
“The first goal of ESA—and also our goal—is to find out in a structured, very analytical way if [orbital data centers] build sense, and if so, in what way it could be utilizeful and how it could be commercial,” Edge CEO Jarosław Jaworski informed Payload. “Europe was very often late with reusable launchers or telecom consinformations, [so] one of our goals is that when it comes to orbital data centers, Europe will also be relocating rapid.”
Meet Edge: Founded in September 2024, Edge has spent the last year and half in a rapid ramp-up phase.
- Edge signed an additional four contracts with ESA, the European Defence Fund, the Luxembourg Space Agency, and the Luxembourg MoD.
- In March, Edge launched its first demonstration mission onboard SpaceX’s Transporter-16 rideshare mission, validating the company’s ability to operate data-processing systems in-orbit.
- Edge finalized its incorporation of a US subsidiary this month. In June, it plans to open a facility in the US, where the company has seen 90% of its commercial contracts to date, according to Jaworski.
Managing expectations: While some orbital-data-center startups have crafted lofty visions of space’s ability to compete with terrestrial data centers, Edge is more measured in its expectations. Jaworski declares short-term opportunities lie in processing data collected on-orbit to reduce the downlink bottleneck.
Edge is focutilized on distributed networks of orbital-compute power, in an effort to offer speed and global reach to customers willing to pay a premium to access their data. The math of orbital data centers has yet to be fully fleshed out, according to Jaworski.
“We believe that only SpaceX, through its extreme vertical integration, would be able to do what most of the folks from ODC claim—which is to relocate part of AI training to space,” Jaworski stated. “We rather believe that the power of orbital data centers lies in location—being above everything, or being very close to the rest of the sainformite infrastructure.”
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