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Axiom Space orbital data centers

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Axiom Space's orbital data center (ODC) program is the Houston company's effort to sell computing and data storage in orbit to satellites and other spacecraft.[1][2] It started with small test devices on the International Space Station: an Amazon Web Services Snowcone on Axiom's first private astronaut mission in 2022, then a prototype built around Red Hat software, the Axiom Data Center Unit-1 (AxDCU-1), which launched to the station in August 2025.[1][3][4] Axiom's first two in-orbit nodes are computing payloads it bought on satellites operated by Kepler Communications, a Toronto-based optical data-relay company, and they launched on January 11, 2026.[1][5][6] In October 2026 Axiom called the two nodes ARC 1 and ARC 2, part of what it now calls the Axiom Resilient Compute (ARC) platform, and said it had confirmed communication between the nodes and with the ground.[7]

The program sits within the wider field of space-based data centers, but its flown hardware is small and aimed at edge computing for other spacecraft rather than at large-scale AI compute. Axiom says it wants to grow the network "from kilowatts to megawatts" of processing power, and its in-space data director, Jason Aspiotis, has spoken of "gigawatts of capacity in the next couple of decades."[2][8] Its next announced steps are a storage-heavy node on the ISS, built with Spacebilt and planned for 2027, and an on-orbit demonstration of the ARC platform's post-quantum cryptography.[9][7] The company's public statements on the Kepler-hosted nodes give their optical link rate and partners, but not their processor, power or storage specifications, and the October 2026 update named no customers.[1][7]

Overview

ItemDetail
OperatorAxiom Space, Houston, Texas[10]
Axiom's termOrbital Data Center (ODC); the two Kepler-hosted nodes were called Axiom Resilient Compute (ARC) units in October 2026[1][7]
Station-hosted plan announcedDecember 19, 2023 (ODC T1 on Axiom Station)[10]
ISS prototypeAxDCU-1, running Red Hat Device Edge, launched August 24, 2025 on SpaceX's CRS-33 cargo mission[4][11]
In-orbit nodesTwo computing payloads on Kepler satellites, launched January 11, 2026[1][6]
Optical links2.5 Gbps, compatible with the Space Development Agency's Tranche 1 optical standards[2][7]
PartnersKepler Communications, Red Hat, Spacebilt, Skyloom, Phison Electronics, Microchip Technology[10][12][5][9]
Public fundingUp to $5.5 million from the Texas Space Commission, awarded May 2025[13][14]
Next planned hardwareAxODC Node ISS, planned for 2027[9]

Expanded article table

Axiom Space

Axiom Space was founded in 2016 by Kam Ghaffarian and Michael Suffredini. Suffredini had managed NASA's International Space Station program from 2005 to 2015 and was Axiom's first chief executive until 2024.[15] The company flies private astronaut missions to the ISS, starting with Ax-1 in 2022; it works with SpaceX for rides to the station, and Ax-4 launched on a Crew Dragon on June 25, 2025.[15][16] Axiom is also developing a commercial space station, Axiom Station, and spacesuits for the Moon and low Earth orbit.[2][14]

Axiom named Jonathan Cirtain chief executive on October 15, 2025. He replaced Tejpaul Bhatia, who had been named CEO in April 2025, and Ghaffarian remained executive chairman.[17][18] In June 2026 the Hungarian group 4iG said Axiom had closed a funding round of more than $525 million.[19] Many of Axiom's public statements on the data center program have come from Aspiotis, its global director of in-space data and security.[2][9]

History

Timeline

DateEvent
2022AWS Snowcone flies to the ISS on Ax-1 and runs a machine learning model on station photos[3]
2023-12-19Axiom announces a station-hosted data center (ODC T1) and optical link agreements with Kepler and Skyloom[10]
2025-03Axiom and Red Hat announce AxDCU-1, then targeted for spring 2025[12][20]
2025-04-07Axiom announces ODC Nodes 1 and 2 on Kepler satellites; Kepler says Axiom bought two computing payloads[2][5]
2025-05-23Texas Space Commission awards Axiom up to $5.5 million for ODC work[13]
2025-08-24AxDCU-1 launches to the ISS on CRS-33[4]
2025-09-16Axiom and Spacebilt announce AxODC Node ISS for 2027[9]
2025-10-034iG signs a non-binding letter on a $100 million Axiom investment and ODC cooperation[21]
2026-01-11Kepler's first tranche launches with Axiom's two nodes[1][6]
2026-03-16NVIDIA names Axiom among companies using its platforms for space missions[22]
2026-10-06Axiom reports two operating ARC nodes and a ground test of post-quantum encryption[7]

Expanded article table

Early tests on the station

Axiom dates the program to Ax-1 in 2022, when an AWS Snowcone SSD flew to the station with the crew.[1][2][3] The Snowcone is a small, rugged AWS edge computing device. AWS listed it at 2 CPUs, 4 GB of memory and 14 TB of SSD storage, and said teams from AWS, NASA and Axiom spent seven months testing it before flight.[3] The AWS Machine Learning Solutions Lab built a model with Axiom to analyze photos taken aboard the station. Once the photos were on the device, the model returned results within three seconds, and the ground team uploaded an updated 7 GB model during the mission.[3] TechCrunch described it as an object detection model that helped the crew catalog equipment and flag items to be excluded from public distribution.[23] Axiom calls this the first commercial AI inferencing in orbit.[1] AWS said in July 2022 that the Snowcone would stay on the station for other experiments through the end of that year.[3]

Axiom also lists a test with Quantinuum's Quantum Origin product, in which it sent the message "Hello Quantum World" from the station to the ground, encrypted with post-quantum keys. The company describes it as the first quantum-secure link between the ISS and Earth.[1]

Station-hosted plan (2023)

On December 19, 2023, Axiom said it had agreements with Kepler Communications US and Skyloom Global to integrate and demonstrate optical intersatellite links on the first module of Axiom Station. In parallel it was building a first tranche of orbital data center capability, called ODC T1, to be hosted on the station.[10] The optical links were to carry up to 10 gigabits per second and meet Space Development Agency interoperability standards.[10] Axiom planned a smaller prototype on the ISS for launch in 2024. Aspiotis said it would serve as "a building block toward the roughly half-cubic-meter sized data server rack we plan to launch by 2027."[10] Under that plan, the data center hardware and optical terminals would be flown to the Axiom Hab One module after it docked with the ISS, and ODC T1 would launch by 2027.[10]

The station schedule has since changed. At the end of 2024 Axiom reordered its station assembly so that a Payload Power Thermal Module would launch first, and in October 2025 Washington Technology reported that Axiom planned to launch its first module in 2028.[24][18] In April 2025 Aspiotis recalled the 2023 plan for "an ODC Tranche 1 on Axiom Station" and described the Kepler-hosted nodes as "an acceleration of our plans to deploy a multitude of free-flyer ODC nodes in LEO."[2]

AxDCU-1 on the ISS (2025)

Axiom and Red Hat announced AxDCU-1 in early March 2025 and aimed to launch it to the station that spring.[20][12] The unit runs Red Hat Device Edge, which combines MicroShift, a lightweight Kubernetes distribution derived from Red Hat OpenShift, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the Ansible Automation Platform.[20][12] Axiom said it would test cloud computing, AI and machine learning, data fusion and space cybersecurity applications.[12][20] The Register described the unit as roughly the size of a shoebox. Aspiotis told it the hardware was a commercial off-the-shelf unit built for harsh environments, that it would be integrated like any other hosted payload, that it could be controlled over ground-to-space or space-to-space links, and that Axiom planned to use it for at least two years.[20]

The spring 2025 target slipped. AxDCU-1 launched on August 24, 2025, on SpaceX's 33rd commercial resupply mission for NASA, as a technology demonstration sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory.[4][11] Red Hat's chief architect for science and space, Tony James, told Data Center Knowledge that the platform "incorporates automated rollbacks and self-healing capabilities through delta updates and health monitoring." Patrick O'Neill of the ISS National Laboratory said data transfer and near real-time analysis had long been a limiting resource for researchers on the station.[4] Axiom says it deployed the unit aboard the station in the fall of 2025. Its program page still describes the unit's tests in the future tense and gives no results.[1]

Nodes on Kepler satellites (2025-2026)

At the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs on April 7, 2025, Axiom announced that its first two ODC nodes would reach low Earth orbit by the end of 2025 as part of Kepler's optical relay constellation.[2] The same day Kepler said customers could lease or buy computing hardware aboard its relay satellites, and that Axiom had agreed to buy two initial computing payloads, with options to buy more.[5] Kepler then planned to launch its first tranche, nine satellites and a spare in sun-synchronous orbit, in the fourth quarter of 2025.[5] Space.com reported that the nodes, called ODC 1 and 2, would ride on two of the ten Kepler satellites.[25]

Axiom said the nodes would have 2.5 Gbps optical links to other Kepler satellites and to spacecraft that follow the Space Development Agency's Tranche 1 optical standards, with optical or radio links to the ground, and that it planned to add links of 10 Gbps and more as they became available.[2] Kam Ghaffarian, then Axiom's CEO and executive chairman, said: "We have agreements in place with users around the world to deploy initial, space-based cloud services, not just demonstrations of capabilities." The release did not name those users. It did mention the U.S. Golden Dome missile defense initiative as a possible application.[2]

In November 2025 Kepler set the launch for January 2026 on a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base. It said each of the ten 300 kg-class satellites would carry at least four optical terminals and that the network would route data as an IP-based mesh.[26] The satellites launched on January 11, 2026, on SpaceX's first Twilight rideshare, which released 40 spacecraft into a dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbit.[27][6] Kepler said each satellite carried multi-GPU compute modules with terabytes of storage, that the satellites would now begin commissioning, and that Axiom would use the network for on-orbit data center nodes.[6] Axiom says its first two ODC nodes launched that day with Kepler's first tranche.[1]

ISS node with Spacebilt (planned for 2027)

On September 16, 2025, Axiom and Spacebilt announced the Axiom Orbital Data Center Node on the International Space Station (AxODC Node ISS), planned for 2027.[9] Spacebilt leads the engineering and supplies its Large In-Space Servers (LiSS). Phison Electronics supplies Pascari enterprise SSDs, including 122.88 TB drives, for more than one petabyte of storage. Microchip Technology supplies a PCIe Gen5 switch, a PolarFire SoC and the PIC64-HPSC processor, which is to act as the core controller and workload CPU. Skyloom supplies one optical communications terminal rated at up to 2.5 Gbps.[9] The servers are also meant to give AxDCU-1 network access to the optical terminals mounted outside the station.[9] Aspiotis said that "by 2027, we plan to have at least three ODC nodes, interconnected and interoperable with each other."[9]

The Register pointed out that the ISS is due to be deorbited by 2030, which limits how long a station-mounted node could run. It asked Axiom whether the hardware would move to Axiom's own modules, and the company had not answered at the time of publication.[28]

Axiom Resilient Compute (2026)

In an update issued in Antalya, Türkiye, on October 6, 2026, Axiom said it "currently operates two ARCs on orbit," launched earlier in the year on Kepler's constellation and developed with funds granted by the Texas Space Commission.[7] It said it had confirmed ARC-to-ARC and ARC-to-ground communications. Separately, in a ground demonstration, it had migrated a workload encrypted with post-quantum cryptography, and it said the encryption is built in at both the silicon and software levels.[7] The company tied the work to a June 2026 U.S. executive order and Office of Management and Budget guidance that set deadlines for federal agencies to move high-value assets and high-impact systems to post-quantum cryptography keys by the end of 2030.[7]

Axiom described its next milestone as an on-orbit demonstration of the post-quantum capability, after which it plans to scale the network "from its current prototype infrastructure" to a global, sovereign orbital processing capability.[7] It also pitched the same platform for remote sites on Earth, such as oil and gas, mining, subsea and maritime energy operations.[7] "The solution isn't just more bandwidth, it's less dependence on bandwidth in the first place, by securely processing data close to where it's captured," Cirtain said.[7] Caitlin Marsh, president of Kepler Communications U.S., said on-orbit compute "is a core capability of Kepler's constellation."[7][29]

Hardware and software

UnitHostStatus (October 2026)Disclosed details
AWS Snowcone SSDISSFlew on Ax-1 in 2022[3]2 CPUs, 4 GB memory, 14 TB SSD storage[3]
AxDCU-1ISS, as a hosted payloadLaunched August 24, 2025[4]Shoebox-sized off-the-shelf hardware running Red Hat Device Edge[20]
ODC Nodes 1 and 2 (ARC 1 and ARC 2)Two Kepler relay satellitesLaunched January 11, 2026; Axiom says both operate[1][7]2.5 Gbps optical links; host satellites carry multi-GPU modules and terabytes of storage, per Kepler[2][6]
AxODC Node ISSISSPlanned for 2027[9]Spacebilt LiSS servers, over 1 PB of Phison SSDs, Microchip PIC64-HPSC, Skyloom optical terminal[9]
ODC T1Axiom StationPlanned in 2023 for launch by 2027[10]Roughly half-cubic-meter server rack; optical links up to 10 Gbps[10]

Expanded article table

Axiom says the network is built from commercial off-the-shelf hardware running industry-standard containerized operating systems. Software and model updates go over the air with safety checks, and hardware is to be maintained through resupply missions or, for free-flying nodes, by replacing modules.[1] The company's program page gives the optical link rate as "2.5 gigabytes per second," while its press releases give 2.5 Gbps, meaning gigabits per second.[1][2][7]

NVIDIA's March 16, 2026 space computing announcement listed Axiom with Aetherflux, Kepler, Planet, Sophia Space and Starcloud as companies using NVIDIA accelerated computing platforms for space missions. It did not say which NVIDIA product Axiom uses. In the same release Kepler's chief executive, Mina Mitry, said NVIDIA Jetson Orin was bringing AI to Kepler's satellites.[22]

Funding

The Texas Space Commission awarded Axiom up to $5.5 million from its Space Exploration and Aeronautics Research Fund, announced on May 23, 2025, to develop and begin operating initial ODC capabilities.[13] The commission said the grant reimburses eligible costs such as equipment, research and development, and salaries, and has a termination date of November 30, 2027.[14] Axiom said the funded work would involve Texas companies, research institutes and universities.[13]

On October 3, 2025, 4iG Space and Defence, part of Hungary's 4iG Group, announced that it had signed a non-binding letter to evaluate a $100 million equity investment in Axiom. The two companies also defined a separate framework, which could reach $100 million over five years, for orbital data center work, under which 4iG could become the first European technology company in the ODC program, including work on optical ground stations.[21][30] On December 19, 2025, 4iG announced that it had signed a definitive agreement for the full $100 million investment. European Spaceflight noted that the December announcement was less specific than the October letter about how the money would be used.[31] 4iG said it completed the second, $70 million tranche on March 30, 2026.[32] In June 2026 it said it plans an active role in areas including orbital data centers.[19]

Stated uses

Axiom's April 2025 announcement listed four main uses:[2]

  • processing, exploitation and dissemination of data from national security and commercial satellites in orbit
  • lower-latency multi-sensor fusion for threat detection and tracking
  • AI and machine learning, including large language models, for autonomous or semi-autonomous decisions by satellites
  • endpoint detection and response for the cybersecurity of satellites, without depending on ground systems

Axiom told DCD that early customers would include national security, civil and commercial Earth observation operators using the nodes as an orbital vault for backups of their most sensitive data. Aspiotis also named telecommunications, IoT, transport, banking and healthcare as possible users.[8] In its Texas Space Commission announcement, Axiom said it was evaluating how its ODC architecture could support the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system.[13]

Axiom's nodes are one of several early orbital computing projects. Others include Starcloud, Lonestar Data Holdings, Google's Project Suncatcher and SpaceX's Starmind. The Register placed AxDCU-1 between two kinds of computer already flown on the ISS: HPE's Spaceborne Computer series of commercial off-the-shelf supercomputers, and the Raspberry Pi computers of the European Space Agency's Astro Pi education program.[20] When Axiom and Kepler signed their 2025 deal, Kepler described on-orbit computing as a general service that could also serve governments and Earth observation operators, and its release said Axiom had purchased the first Kepler on-orbit computing payloads.[8][5]

References

  1. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8 ^9 ^10 ^11 ^12 ^13 ^14 ^15Axiom Space, "Orbital Data Centers," Axiom Space, accessed October 16, 2026. axiomspace.com/orbital-data-center
  2. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8 ^9 ^10 ^11 ^12 ^13 ^14Axiom Space, "Axiom Space to Launch Orbital Data Center Nodes to Support National Security, Commercial, International Customers," Axiom Space, April 7, 2025. axiomspace.com/...mmercial-international-customers
  3. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8Jeff Barr, "How We Sent an AWS Snowcone into Orbit," AWS News Blog, July 21, 2022. aws.amazon.com/...-sent-an-aws-snowcone-into-orbit
  4. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6Sean Michael Kerner, "ISS Data Center Launch Tests Edge Computing at 400km Above Earth," Data Center Knowledge, September 2, 2025. datacenterknowledge.com/...ng-at-400km-above-earth
  5. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6Kepler Communications, "Kepler Announces On-Orbit Compute Capacity on Optical Data Relay Network," Kepler, April 7, 2025. kepler.space/...city-on-optical-data-relay-network
  6. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6Kepler Communications, "Kepler Successfully Launches First Tranche of Optical Relay Satellites," Kepler, January 11, 2026. kepler.space/...ranche-of-optical-relay-satellites
  7. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8 ^9 ^10 ^11 ^12 ^13 ^14 ^15Axiom Space, "Axiom Space, Kepler Ready Orbital Computing for Quantum Era," Axiom Space, October 6, 2026. axiomspace.com/...rbital-computing-for-quantum-era
  8. ^1 ^2 ^3Laurence Russell, "Axiom Space purchases Kepler on-orbit compute payloads ahead of late-2025 constellation rollout," DCD, April 10, 2025. datacenterdynamics.com/...25-constellation-rollout
  9. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8 ^9 ^10 ^11Axiom Space, "Axiom Space, Spacebilt Announce Orbital Data Center Node Aboard International Space Station," Axiom Space, September 16, 2025. axiomspace.com/...nnounce-orbital-data-center-node
  10. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8 ^9 ^10Axiom Space, "Axiom Space Partners with Kepler Space and Skyloom to Operationalize the World's 1st Orbital Data Center," Axiom Space, December 19, 2023. axiomspace.com/...orbital-data-center
  11. ^1 ^2Alun Williams, "Datacentre in space," Electronics Weekly, August 22, 2025. electronicsweekly.com/...datacentre-in-space-2025-08
  12. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Georgia Butler, "Red Hat teams up with Axiom Space on International Space Station data center project," DCD, March 8, 2025. datacenterdynamics.com/...tion-data-center-project
  13. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Axiom Space, "Texas Space Commission Awards Axiom Space $5.5 Million to Fuel Bold Orbital Data Center Initiative," Axiom Space, May 23, 2025. axiomspace.com/...ission-fuels-orbital-data-center
  14. ^1 ^2 ^3Texas Space Commission, "Texas Space Commission Awards Grant to Axiom Space, Inc.," Texas Space Commission, accessed October 16, 2026. space.texas.gov/...awards-grant-to-axiom-space-inc
  15. ^1 ^2Axiom Space, "Team," Axiom Space, accessed October 16, 2026. axiomspace.com/about
  16. ^Brendan Byrne, "SpaceX launches 4 people into orbit on Axiom Space Ax-4 mission," NPR (via Michigan Public), June 25, 2025. michiganpublic.org/...-on-axiom-space-ax-4-mission
  17. ^Axiom Space, "Axiom Space Appoints Dr. Jonathan Cirtain as CEO and President," Axiom Space, October 15, 2025. axiomspace.com/...jonathan-cirtain-ceo
  18. ^1 ^2Ross Wilkers, "Axiom Space hires NASA, BWXT vet as CEO," Washington Technology, October 16, 2025. washingtontechnology.com/...408856
  19. ^1 ^24iG, "4iG Group Joins Axiom Space as Largest European Investor," 4iG, June 4, 2026. 4ig.hu/...axiom-space-as-largest-european-investor
  20. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7Richard Speed, "Axiom Space and Red Hat to take edge computing into orbit," The Register, March 7, 2025. theregister.com/...axiom_space_and_red_hat
  21. ^1 ^24iG Space and Defence, "4iG Space and Defence Aims to Become Strategic Investor of Axiom Space" (press release), 4iG, October 3, 2025. 4ig.hu/...dt_axiom_space_pressrelease_20251003.pdf
  22. ^1 ^2NVIDIA, "NVIDIA Launches Space Computing, Rocketing AI Into Orbit," NVIDIA Newsroom, March 16, 2026. nvidianews.nvidia.com/...space-computing
  23. ^Frederic Lardinois, "AWS sent a Snowcone to space," TechCrunch, June 23, 2022. techcrunch.com/...aws-sent-a-snowcone-to-space
  24. ^Richard Speed, "Commercial space station outfit plans two Orbital Data Center nodes by the end of 2025," The Register, April 9, 2025. theregister.com/...data_centers_leo_axiom_space
  25. ^Tereza Pultarova, "Axiom Space to launch its 1st orbiting data centers this year," Space.com, April 14, 2025. space.com/...s-1st-orbiting-data-centers-this-year
  26. ^Kepler Communications, "Kepler Announces Launch Date for First Tranche of Optical Satellites," Kepler, November 17, 2025. kepler.space/...irst-tranche-of-optical-satellites
  27. ^Will Robinson-Smith, "SpaceX deploys NASA's Pandora, other smallsats amid 1st 'Twilight' rideshare mission," Spaceflight Now, January 10, 2026. spaceflightnow.com/...t-twilight-rideshare-mission
  28. ^Richard Speed, "Axiom Space aims for orbit with its Orbital Data Center Node," The Register, September 17, 2025. theregister.com/...1259917
  29. ^Alun Williams, "Axiom Space highlights space computing progress," Electronics Weekly, October 9, 2026. electronicsweekly.com/...omputing-progress-2026-10
  30. ^Laurence Russell, "4iG weighs $100m investment into Axiom Space as part of orbital data center plan," DCD, October 9, 2025. datacenterdynamics.com/...orbital-data-center-plan
  31. ^Andrew Parsonson, "Hungary's 4iG to Invest $100 Million in Axiom Space," European Spaceflight, December 22, 2025. europeanspaceflight.com/...-million-in-axiom-space
  32. ^4iG, "Extraordinary Announcement of 4iG Plc - 2026.03.31.," 4iG, March 31, 2026. 4ig.hu/...ry-announcement-of-4ig-plc---2026_03_31_

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