Satellite sensors collect incredible amounts of data, but in-orbit computing limitations prevent operators from processing it in space. Founded a year ago, Aethero plans to change that.
Aethero is developing radiation-hardened edge computers for on-orbit data processing and ultimately autonomous decision making.
“Space data preprocessing is a big market at the moment, but we expect that over the years and as the number of on-orbit assets increases, spacecraft autonomy will become mainstream,” Aethero co-founder and CEO Edward Ge said in a recent interview.
Ge founded Aethero with his childhood friend Amit Pinnamaneni, who also own a startup called Stratodyne, which creates high-altitude balloons for remote sensing. Even though they're very different endeavors, the founders say both businesses face similar challenges.
Space computers today use field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) with older architectures that cannot handle computationally intensive tasks such as training or deploying advanced computer vision models in orbit.
“We realized that the problem was not getting enough data from space, but getting the data from the sensor in space to the end user quickly enough, and allowing the satellites in orbit to make real-time decisions.”
During its previous funding round, Aethero raised $1.7 million.
The first generation of the startup's space computer is called AetherNxN and is based on the Nvidia Orin processor. It is designed to last 7 to 10 years in low Earth orbit, can fit on platforms as small as CubeSats, and provides 20 times more computing power than existing options, Ge says.
Aethero plans to release a larger second-generation computer before moving to its own space processor. According to the company, this will help ensure lower power consumption and high performance. The startup aims to produce processors jointly with Intel by 2026.
One of Aethero's missions will launch this June on the SpaceX-11 transporter to demonstrate the ability to operate in space, deliver airborne updates to onboard computer vision models, and train computer vision models.
“We see ourselves as the Intel or Nvidia in the space industry,” Ge said.
Source: TechCrunch
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