Aerospace Corp to Demo ‘Space Cloud’ for Satellite Data Sharing

The Aerospace Corp. plans to take cloud technology to space to demonstrate how it can help artificial intelligence-based satellites eliminate unnecessary data before transmission to ground operators, National Defense Magazine reported Thursday.

An AI-supported cubesat will be launched by the nonprofit research center into orbit in the fall for its “Goats and Boats” demonstration. During the test, a “space cloud” tool installed on the satellite will guide AI in identifying only boats at sea and goats on the ground.

The integrated AI and cloud technologies are designed to enable the satellite to remove insignificant data and transmit only the images of specified target objects to ground stations for analysis.

Reducing the transmitted data will speed up analysis and help cut data downlinks, mission power systems and solar panels, according to Mikhail Tadjikov, director of embedded and specialized computing at Aerospace Corp.

“We can’t be wasting all that data transmission time bringing information down to the ground that is not important,” said Joshua Train, the research center’s chief engineer for ground and information technology.

While the center noted it will not commercialize the space cloud used in the demonstration, it hopes to guide the technology industry and the government in utilizing the technology in space.