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International_Space_Station

When SpaceX's next mission launches on August 14, it won't just be carrying supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has partnered with HP to perform a long-term experiment on how high-stop, modern computers volition perform in space compared with on Earth.

Space, as you may or may non know, is absolutely murder on electronics. Cosmic rays are sufficiently plentiful that astronauts since the 1960s take reported seeing flashes of light when their eyes are closed, and there have been no flashes inside the sheathing, shuttle, or infinite station. Information technology's believed that this is caused by cosmic rays passing through the retina. The ISS isn't protected at all by Earth's atmosphere, and while information technology yet receives substantial protection from Earth's Van Allen belts, the full radiations exposure that an astronaut on the ISS receives in a week is equivalent to what a homo on World receives in a year. At ane signal, the ISS passes through the far edge of the inner Van Allen belt, and the coiffure receives 30x more radiation than they would otherwise during this interval.

Electronics, historically, don't cope with this well. When NASA builds a probe or a rover, they use CPUs and components that are laughably ho-hum past modern standards. The flip side to this is that the components in question take been extensively over-engineered and hardened against radiation. This is a real problem; L2 enshroud errors increment measurably when you run code on a server at high altitude compared with at sea level. But while this is a known problem in full general, NASA hasn't tested how conventional, off-the-shelf electronics will behave in infinite over the long-term, especially if measures are taken to reduce the computer'southward speed as the station passes through higher amounts of radiations.

Here'due south how the experiment will work. Two Spaceborne Computers will exist sent to the ISS, courtesy of HP and NASA. Two more machines will be configured as control systems and volition remain at HP. The Spaceborne Computers will exist used to notice whether information technology's practical to operate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) systems in a high-radiation environment. The goals are to run compute and data-intensive applications, monitor ability consumption, and dynamically tune it when required.

Apollo-Systems

We don't know which Apollo systems HP will utilise, but here's a representative sample of the product line.

We don't know much about the specs of the servers themselves. But they're reportedly based on HP's Apollo family unit, and they won't have any special radiation shielding to protect them. This isn't just a distraction; if NASA is going to send people to Mars, it needs to know what kind of computing horsepower information technology can transport with them. Calculating circuitous trajectories, orbital insertion maneuvers, and managing a spacecraft over the months it would have to make it (travel time to Mars is typically estimated at 6-8 months) are difficult tasks. Understanding whether existing conventional computers can part in the relatively shielded orbit of the ISS will tell u.s. of import things virtually how they are likely to function on a long space mission, and what kind of shielding or countermeasures may be required to guarantee proper estimator function over the long haul.

We've already seen rovers like Curiosity need to switch to its fill-in reckoner subsequently several years on Mars. Given that every pound of estimator hardware is a pound that can't be allocated to something else, NASA undoubtedly wants to empathise where the limits of safety are so it can programme for appropriate missions – provided, of course, that Congress ever allocates enough money for a manned mission to Mars in the beginning place.