Space exploration demands an enormous amount of resources, making efficiency one of its priorities. On Earth, we have powerful and stable hardware, but the hostility of the vacuum changes the rules entirely. That's where Spaceborne Computer comes in—a machine that reached the International Space Station last month. Built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise using commercial off-the-shelf components, it may not exceed one TeraFLOP in maximum speed, but that's more than enough to evaluate its operation and robustness.
Modern hardware has allowed us to put staggering processing power on our desktops. At the end of July, we talked about a 50 TeraFLOPS system for just over $3,000, thanks to new Ryzen chips and Radeon Vega Frontier Edition cards. I'm convinced we'll see even more impressive numbers next year, and we can't ignore the race toward the ExaFLOP in the world of supercomputers. Now imagine a one-TeraFLOP computer. That performance doesn't impress much when you consider that supercomputers passed that mark back in 1996, and something as simple as a Radeon RX 550 achieves 1.1 TFLOPS in single precision. But this computer has a special detail: it's the fastest in space.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/VpA-t4gJVoQMission and Specifications
Spaceborne Computer is the result of a collaboration between NASA and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The mission's goal is to evaluate, over one year, the performance and integrity of conventional computer components aboard the International Space Station. The computer arrived there last month thanks to a SpaceX launch, but it was activated only in recent days. Unfortunately, we don't have the exact specifications beyond it being based on two HPE Apollo 40 servers with Intel Broadwell processors, several solid-state drives, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the operating system.
Its 56.2 kilograms make it difficult to handle on the ground, but its installation on the station went smoothly, even with the required electrical conversion. The first LINPACK test produced exactly the expected result: one TeraFLOP, which has been validated. Spaceborne Computer has twelve tough months ahead, but if it reaches the end successfully, it will surely give rise to even more powerful systems in space.
