SAN FRANCISCO - SpaceComputer, a Singapore-based startup with ambitions to wire up the cosmos, is gearing up to prove its distributed computing infrastructure actually works in orbit later this year. Because what's the point of having satellites if they can't gossip securely with each other?
The company's debut product, Space Fabric, is a hardware-software architecture that uses physically isolated computing elements to link ground stations with satellites and let those satellites share computing resources. The printed circuit boards (PCBs) for Space Fabric are being prepped for launch in October aboard some satellite that SpaceComputer is being coy about. We're guessing it's not a weather balloon.
Despite all the money pouring into orbital data centers and other space-based infrastructure, "there isn't yet much thought about the space internet," co-founder Daniel Bar, a blockchain entrepreneur, told SpaceNews. Because apparently, launching stuff into space is easier than figuring out how to make it all talk to each other without a cosmic spam filter. Bar argues for "an open, protocol-oriented approach" so different stakeholders can interface rather than operating in silos - a radical concept that worked pretty well for the terrestrial internet, except for all the cat videos.
Bar and co-founder Filip Rezabek, a Technical University of Munich PhD student focused on network security, believe "space, as the next digital frontier, will evolve like the internet did: open, interoperable and based on public protocols relying on cryptographic security and strong data integrity assurances." In other words, they want space to grow up to be the internet, but hopefully with fewer data breaches and NFT scams.
Space Fabric's PCBs will generate cryptographic keys to secure data "in orbit, so there is no need to trust us or the operators that run Space Fabric," Bar said. To be extra sure, they've added "redundancy of two different secure elements that are attesting against each other." Because even in space, you need a backup for your backup, and mutual suspicion is a feature, not a bug.
Use cases for Space Fabric include secure computing, communications, and provenance verification for geospatial data - basically, making sure your satellite data hasn't been tampered with by space pirates or rogue AI.
SpaceComputer is also developing Orbitport, an application programming interface (API) that acts as a secure gateway linking satellites and payloads with terrestrial compute. Rezabek says Orbitport will make interacting with ground station providers "a more seamless experience." Because nothing says seamless like adding another layer of complexity to space operations.
Since its founding in 2024, SpaceComputer has raised $10 million in pre-seed and seed funding. Advisors include University of California, Santa Barbara computer science professor Dahlia Malke and Will Heltsley, former SpaceX vice president of propulsion - presumably not for their opinions on blockchain.