Lunar Data Centers And Human Archives

Space-based and Moon-based Data Centers: A New Era in Data Storage and Processing

Introduction

Space-based and moon-based data centers are being created to support Earth and outer space data processing requirements and to provide new data disaster recovery capabilities. Storing data on the Moon or even in near-Earth orbit has interest to governments, NGOs, and commercial enterprises. Data storage in outer space provides an additional layer of data security against natural disasters, social upheavals, and other threats to data integrity and longevity.

The Blue Ghost Mission: A Successful Landing on the Moon

We wrote about the Lonestar Data Holdings partnership with Flexential to test equipment for a moon-based data center as well as synthetic DNA storage in the Blue Ghost Mission in January. The Blue Ghost Mission from Firefly Aerospace landed successfully on the Moon on March 2 and has been performing various experiments on the Moon’s surface since then. The synthetic DNA in the Blue Ghost Mission carries tokens and historical data and is encapsulated within a monument symbolizing humanity’s achievements.

The Lonestar Freedom Mission: A New Era in Data Storage

The Intuitive Machines landing vehicle, containing the Lonestar Holdings Freedom data module made its lunar landing on March 6 and although radio communications work, it appears that the vehicle did not land flat on the surface and as a consequence, there was concern whether it would be able to perform some of the planned experiments, including drilling for water near the Moon’s Southern Pole, where it is believed that water ice from meteorite impacts may hide in craters that are sheltered from the sun. It is also not clear as of this writing, whether the Freedom data center module is fully functional.

Phison and Lonestar Data Holdings Partnership

Phison partnered with Lonestar Data Holdings to provide SSD storage based on the company’s Pascari enterprise-grade storage solution for the Lonestar Freedom Mission. The SSDs are used for backup and recovery for storing mission data. Phison said that this collaboration would ensure that the Freedom mission moves beyond technical innovation to unlock the future of interplanetary operations. It is hoped that with unique solar-power sourcing and natural cooling capabilities that the lunar data center design can maintain peak operational performance with minimal resource dependency.

The Future of Data Centers in Space

Lonestar’s ultimate goal for Freedom is to provide petabyte-scale long-term storage to support local data center needs as well as backup of important data on the Moon’s surface. Data center resources on the Moon will help with edge computing capability to support the upcoming Artemis manned missions to the Moon. Future manned missions further in space, such as Mars, could also benefit from outer space data centers that could support local lower latency processing than is possible for data sent to and from Earth.

Conclusion

Recent landings of data center technologies, including data storage and stored archives on the Moon, are creating a path for the development of lunar and other extraterrestrial enterprises. The creation of a series of data centers in outer space or on other planetary bodies will enable an extraterrestrial internet, which requires local data storage to cache data and messages locally so they can be transmitted to off-planet and Earth transceivers when such transmission becomes possible. Creating a series of data centers between remote space data centers could also enable interplanetary distributed computing to better understand outer space and the solar environment that surrounds us on Earth.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the purpose of the Blue Ghost Mission?
  The Blue Ghost Mission is a lunar mission that aims to test equipment for a moon-based data center as well as synthetic DNA storage.
• What is the Lonestar Freedom Mission?
  The Lonestar Freedom Mission is a lunar mission that aims to provide petabyte-scale long-term storage to support local data center needs as well as backup of important data on the Moon’s surface.
• What is the purpose of the Phison and Lonestar Data Holdings partnership?
  The partnership aims to provide SSD storage based on Phison’s Pascari enterprise-grade storage solution for the Lonestar Freedom Mission, ensuring the mission moves beyond technical innovation to unlock the future of interplanetary operations.