Axiom Space, a pioneering space company, gained recognition through its involvement in designing space suits for NASA’s Artemis project. However, the company’s primary focus lies in Axiom Station, a privately-owned space station aiming to launch its first components into space by 2027.
Just last week, Axiom Space announced a partnership with Red Hat to deploy a “Data Center Unit” to test operations on the International Space Station (ISS) during the spring of 2025. This Data Center Unit, named Axiom Space’s Data Center Unit-1 (AxDCU-1), may sound slightly obscure, but in reality, it’s a compact server akin to Red Hat Device Edge, running cloud, AI, data, and security operations. It utilizes a suite of Red Hat software including RHEL, OpenShift, and Ansible.
The goal of this test is to evaluate the functionality of a small-scale data center in space, often referred to as an Orbital Data Center (ODC), in order to minimize reliance on transmitting data back to Earth, which can be time-consuming.
Source: Axiom Space, TechRadar
TLDR: Axiom Space, known for designing space suits, is now focusing on Axiom Station, a private space station. They are collaborating with Red Hat to test a compact data center unit on the ISS to reduce data transmission delays.
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