Satlyt Completes First Orbital Test of Satellite Computing Software

Satlyt, a startup building software to turn existing satellites into data processing networks, has completed a successful test of its technology in orbit, founder Rama Afullo said.

The test came after 13 months of development and was conducted with the University of Houston as part of a NASA-funded research project. It demonstrated how the company's software can distribute tasks across computers in orbit based on communication and available compute.

In the experiment, Satlyt built a simulated network of four computers, four users and eight services. The software determined how to assign and run tasks while accounting for compute and communication availability. Only one physical computer on a spacecraft actually ran the software; the other three were simulations. Results were sent back to Earth.

The test showed the software can generate plans on hardware in orbit, though further testing is needed to see how multiple physical computers transfer information among themselves in practice. Afullo described the outcome as a trade-off: one approach performed best but demanded more computing power than the alternatives.

Satlyt's software is already aboard three satellites in orbit. NASA has not selected the company for any specific mission or to deploy its technology. Afullo said NASA missions face the same constraints Satlyt aims to address: limited computing resources, intermittent communication, and the need to deliver useful information to people.

Afullo, who previously worked at Google and SpaceX, founded Satlyt in 2024. The company placed in the top five of this year's TechCrunch Disrupt Battle. He said the experiment is a building block toward satellites sharing computing work, with the broader goal of getting useful answers to people sooner and making better use of limited communication windows.

The company still needs to test its software under various workloads, hardware and connectivity conditions. It also identified an issue in how its software time-referenced delays, stamping arrival time rather than elapsed delay. Afullo said the experiment did not fail, noting that software development, onboard execution and the return of outputs all succeeded.

He said much work remains, including usable communication links, permission from participating operators, secure transfers, resource scheduling and recovery when a connection of computers becomes unavailable. The next technical steps are broader validation and integration, followed by demonstrations of computing work shared across separate spacecraft.

Source: TechCrunch