Satlyt takes another step toward turning satellites into space data centers

Satlyt, a company founded by Rama Afullo, has successfully tested its software that enables existing satellites to function as virtual data centers. The test, which took 13 months to prepare, demonstrated the software's ability to distribute tasks among multiple computers in orbit based on communication and computing availability. Satlyt's goal is to create a network of satellites that can share computing assignments, with the user defining permissions, priorities, and limits, and the software making decisions within those limits. The company's software is already on three satellites in orbit and the test was a crucial first step towards achieving this vision. The software was tested in collaboration with the University of Houston on a NASA-funded research project, and it has the potential to address the constraints faced by NASA missions, including limited computing resources, intermittent communication, and the need to get useful information back to people. The test involved a simulated network with four computers, four users, and eight services, and the software assessed how to assign and run tasks on those computers, accounting for compute and communication availability. The test was successful, but more testing is needed to see how the computers transfer data.