The first commercial off-the-shelf supercomputer is expected to head into outer space Monday.
Elon Musk's SpaceX-12 rocket intends to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with a HPE supercomputer – stored in a custom-designed locker – on-board. Headed to the International Space Station National Lab, the supercomputer, called the Spaceborne Computer, will be a part of an experiment conducted by HPE and NASA with the goal of installing a computing system that can operate seamlessly in the harsh conditions of space for a year – the estimated time it would take to travel to Mars.
"This is the first step in that mission to Mars," says Dr. Mark Fernandez, the lead payload engineer for the project. "We will be able to follow along with NASA as well as the IT technology as it advances so that when we're ready to go to Mars, we can take the current generation, most advanced computers available."
Every month, astronauts receive new laptops because the conditions in space cause them to deteriorate at an accelerated rate. The project, which began in the summer of 2014, involves breaking a supercomputer down to its most basic software structure and hardening that software to withstand real-time environmentally induced errors, extending the longevity of the computers. It would be the foundation for future experiments such as installing memory-driven computing, which enables supercomputers to access a giant shared pool of memory, allowing data to flow more easily between interconnected computing systems.
"We've done nothing hardware-wise to protect the system from radiation or solar flares. It's all at the software level," Fernandez says. "An expression that people use is we hardened the software, and that is much faster and cheaper than the traditional way."
The current time it would take to communicate between Mars and Earth – as illustrated in the blockbuster movie, 'Martian' – is about 26 minutes, Fernandez says. The hope is that this supercomputer, if successful, would cut that time down to make communication more accessible between Earth and space explorers.
"If you're that far away from Earth and something happens, you might need some answers out of the computer really quick – it might be nice to have a functioning supercomputer with you," Fernandez says. "So part of the mission to the International Space Station is to explore and [conduct] research that is needed to take us out of lower-Earth orbit and onto the moon and Mars and beyond."
Fernandez says that, either way, he is in a win-win situation when it comes to the success or failure of the year-long experiment. If the computers work as they're supposed to, we can advance space exploration, he says. If they fail, it would still be an advancement in computer science and development, as his team would analyze what caused the failure.
"And if we can fix that component, then that will increase the reliability of computers for everyone – not only for the space-bound folks, but for the earth-bound ones, too," Fernandez says.
For Fernandez, the experiment stretches past his work duties to his own personal interests. He wants to be a part of advancing the scientific community, he says, and by placing a super computer on the International Space Station, the research conducted in space can be processed and analyzed faster, as it would if it were in an earth-bound lab.
"Then they have a smaller amount of data to send down to Earth to look at, and that preserves the precious network bandwidth capabilities from space to Earth," Fernandez says. "I want to accelerate science."
0 Comments