Lonestar Data Holdings
Lonestar Data Holdings (usually shortened to Lonestar) is a US startup that sells off-Earth data storage, mainly as a disaster-recovery and data-sovereignty service, and has flown small test payloads to the International Space Station and to the Moon.[1][9][24] Its best-known hardware, an 8 TB solid-state storage unit called Freedom, flew to the lunar south pole region on Intuitive Machines' Athena lander in 2025. Athena landed on its side and lost power within about a day, and Lonestar says the unit briefly worked on the surface before the lander shut down.[23][24] The company is based in St. Petersburg, Florida, and also lists an office in Austin, Texas.[43] It now plans to put commercial storage payloads in low Earth orbit on satellites built by Sidus Space, with the first one slipping to no earlier than April 2027.[34][42]
Lonestar is often grouped with orbital computing companies such as Starcloud in coverage of space-based data centers, and it calls its payloads "data centers."[20][28] Its flown hardware so far has been data storage with a small processor, not AI compute. Independent reporters have questioned whether "data center" is the right word for a book-sized device holding 8 TB.[18][21] In 2026 the company added AI services to its marketing, such as sovereign language models and in-orbit inference, but none of these has flown.[39][43]
Overview
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2018, according to Blocks and Files and Fierce Network[17][18] |
| Founders | Chris Stott, Mark Matossian, Carol Goldstein and Del Smith[3][4] |
| Headquarters | St. Petersburg, Florida; an Austin, Texas office is also listed[43] |
| Chief executive | Stephen Eisele (DCD reported his appointment in January 2026, though a Sidus Space release already called him CEO in November 2025); Chris Stott became executive chairman[32][33] |
| Main business | Off-Earth data storage for backup, disaster recovery and data sovereignty[17][33] |
| Flown payloads | ISS software test (2021), IM-1 software test (2024), Freedom hardware on IM-2 (2025)[1][9][24] |
| Next planned flight | First StarVault payload on Sidus Space's LizzieSat-4, no earlier than April 2027[42] |
| Disclosed funding | $5 million seed (2023), about $825,000 pre-Series A (2023), $6.6 million (2026), plus an undisclosed 021T Capital investment (2026)[6][7][33][38] |
History
Founding
DCD reported that the idea for Lonestar began in early 2018, when businesses worried about data security after the NotPetya ransomware attack asked Chris Stott, then CEO of the satellite spectrum company ManSat, for advice.[29] The company's founders were Stott, Mark Matossian (formerly CEO of Iceye US and head of data center hardware manufacturing at Google), former banker Carol Goldstein, and Del Smith, formerly senior space business counsel at the law firm Dentons.[3][4] Lonestar publicly announced its lunar plans in April 2022, with contracts for two lunar missions with Intuitive Machines and a hardware build contract with Skycorp, and said it had filed for radio spectrum at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for its lunar missions.[3][4]
International Space Station test (2021-2022)
Lonestar's first flight test used no new hardware. The company said its "software defined payload" was sent to the ISS on December 17, 2021. It reconfigured an existing server on board to run a Canonical Ubuntu virtual machine, which stored data and ran an application that recorded the results on a blockchain before they were sent back to Earth.[1] The hardware belonged to Redwire, which had used it for its in-space 3D printing work. The same demonstration ran Celestium, an AI and blockchain artwork by artist Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm, and stored data for nonprofits including the Arch Mission Foundation.[2] Lonestar announced the test as complete on February 3, 2022.[1]
IM-1 and the Independence test (2024)
On Intuitive Machines' first lunar mission, IM-1, Lonestar again flew software only. DCD described the payload as a "virtual data center," a small software deployment on the lander's existing computers.[10] The lander, Odysseus, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9[29] and landed on February 22, 2024,[9] in the Malapert A crater, about 300 km from the lunar south pole. It then tipped over onto its side.[10]
Lonestar said that on February 19, 2024, during the trip to the Moon, it transmitted the US Declaration of Independence to the lander and received a copy of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights back.[8] After the landing it said it had repeated the exchange from the lunar surface, while keeping data stored on board for its main customer, the State of Florida, through Space Florida.[9] DCD reported the surface test as completed in the lander's final days.[11] The Register had noted a year earlier that IM-1, originally planned for October 2021, had been repeatedly delayed.[5]
Freedom on IM-2 (2025)
Freedom was Lonestar's first dedicated hardware. Skycorp (later renamed SpaceBilt) built it. It used a Phison SSD for storage and a RISC-V processor from Microchip running a version of Linux.[12][45] DCD described the unit as an 8 TB SSD with a single Microchip PolarFire SoC FPGA running Ubuntu and Yocto.[29] Canonical said it built a custom Ubuntu Core image of about 164 MB for the PolarFire SoC, and had to assemble its own bootloader because none existed for the then-new chip.[14] Lonestar CEO Chris Stott told TechCrunch it carried 1 GB of RAM, and IEEE Spectrum gave its mass as 1 kg.[19][20] The architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group designed a 3D-printed shell whose contours are meant to cast the silhouettes of astronauts Charles Duke and Nicole Stott, Chris Stott's wife, as the sunlight changes.[13][29] Stott told DCD the whole mission had only "100 kilobits for the entire mission uplink" for commanding the payload. DCD reported that the Nova-C lander generated about 200 W across all of its payloads.[29]
Athena launched on a Falcon 9 on February 26, 2025.[23] On March 5, Lonestar said Freedom had entered lunar orbit and had passed its in-transit tests. The company listed file uploads and downloads, encryption and decryption, authentication, and edge processing tasks for customers including Valkyrie AI and the Exploration Institute. It also said power, temperature and telemetry readings had stayed stable.[22] Later that year it said a delay-tolerant networking test for the Solar System Internet project, simulating the transfer of medical data, had run on the payload in cislunar space and lunar orbit.[31]
Athena touched down on March 6, 2025, about 250 m from its target at Mons Mouton near the south pole. It came to rest on its side inside a crater. Intuitive Machines said it did not expect the lander to recharge and declared the mission over the next day.[23] DCD reported that Stott confirmed the data center briefly operated on the surface: Lonestar sent data to the lander and received telemetry back before it powered down. He said, "We hit every milestone for our data center operations at every step of the mission."[24] DCD's later feature said Lonestar's was the only payload able to run on the surface.[29] Intuitive Machines, for its part, said controllers had accelerated several payload milestones, including NASA's PRIME-1 suite, before the batteries ran out.[23] Starfield composer Inon Zur posted that Lonestar had transmitted the song "Children of the Sky" and its lyrics to the data center after touchdown.[25] The plan had been to broadcast the song back to Earth from the surface.[16] Stereogum reported afterward that it was unclear whether the song could still be sent back.[25] The results reported for Freedom are Lonestar's own statements.
Customers and payload contents
| Customer or partner | What it flew, according to the company or press | Mission |
|---|---|---|
| State of Florida (via Space Florida) | Stored government data; named Lonestar's primary customer | IM-1, IM-2[9][19] |
| Isle of Man government | Government data | IM-2[19][28] |
| Imagine Dragons and Bethesda | The song "Children of the Sky" from the Starfield soundtrack; IEEE Spectrum also reported a copy of the game Starfield | IM-2[16][19] |
| Valkyrie Intelligence | Graph database test on astrophysics data from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics | IM-2[15] |
| Skycorp (SpaceBilt) | ARMAS radiation sensor | IM-2[12][45] |
| Solar System Internet project | Delay-tolerant networking test | IM-2[31] |
| SSPI | Stored data | IM-1[8] |
Stott told Fierce Network in January 2025 that six government entities had booked space on Freedom. A July 2026 post on Lonestar's website put the number of government customers at eight.[17][38] Lonestar said before launch that the mission's capacity had sold out.[45] TechCrunch reported that the payload also carried data from a space agency testing a large language model, without naming the agency.[20]
Funding and leadership
| Date | Round | Amount | Investors named |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 6, 2023 | Seed | $5 million (the company later said $5.225 million) | Scout Ventures (lead), Seldor Capital, 2 Future Holding, The Veteran Fund, Irongate Capital, Atypical Ventures, KittyHawk Ventures[5][6][7] |
| October 10, 2023 | Pre-Series A | About $825,000 ("over $800,000") | Existing and new investors, not named[7] |
| January 14, 2026 (reported) | Not stated | $6.6 million | Atypical Ventures and The Veteran Fund (leads)[33] |
| July 1, 2026 | Not stated | Not disclosed | 021T Capital[38] |
Stephen Eisele, previously a vice president of business development at Virgin Orbit, joined Lonestar as president and chief revenue officer in December 2023.[44] DCD reported in January 2026 that he had become CEO and that Stott had moved to executive chairman.[33] A Sidus Space release from November 2025 already called Eisele CEO.[32] In September 2026 Lonestar said it had joined NYSE LaunchPad, an NYSE program for growth companies, and had reserved "LNST" as a future ticker. It said this was neither a listing nor a commitment to an IPO.[41]
Plans
Sidus Space spacecraft and the lunar L1 plan
On April 2, 2025, Sidus Space said it would go ahead with a preliminary agreement with Lonestar, valued at about $120 million, to design, build and support six lunar data storage spacecraft based on its LizzieSat platform.[26] The release listed among its risks that "a definitive agreement with Lonestar may not be entered into."[26] DCD reported that the deal built on a November announcement, and that Lonestar was turning to satellites to avoid the risks of landing.[27] In June 2025 DCD reported that the plan had grown into a cislunar constellation powered by Atomic-6 solar arrays. Stott said, "Our next missions are to the Lunar L1 Lagrange point and not to the lunar surface," which he described as a point between Earth and the Moon 300,000 km from Earth.[30] TechCrunch reported that the six spacecraft were expected to launch between 2027 and 2030.[20] Plans have changed before. In February 2025, IEEE Spectrum reported Lonestar's plans as data centers at the lunar L4 and L5 Lagrange points and later in lunar lava tubes.[19] Stott also told Fierce Network that the first satellite, planned for 2027, would hold 15 petabytes.[17]
StarVault in low Earth orbit
Lonestar's nearer-term product is StarVault, which it announced on April 15, 2026 as a commercial space-based "sovereign data storage" service combining stored data with cryptographic key escrow.[34] It said Sidus was building the first StarVault payload for launch that October on LizzieSat-4, and that it had ordered a second payload for 2027. Sidus's own release gave the first launch as no earlier than fall 2026.[34][35][36] Sidus had earlier described a Lonestar "Commercial Pathfinder Mission" with a data storage module to be integrated on LizzieSat-5. That mission would use Sidus's FeatherEdge computer with an NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin for onboard processing, with data storage sold as a recurring service.[32] In August 2026, Space.com reported that LizzieSat-4 was manifested on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare for late October.[40] The launch then slipped. On September 28, 2026, Sidus said LizzieSat-4, carrying hosted payloads from Lonestar and others, was still in production and would fly with LizzieSat-5 on SpaceX's Bandwagon-6 rideshare, targeted for no earlier than April 2027. Sidus's release named LizzieSat-5 as the satellite previously manifested on Transporter-18.[42] In August 2026 Lonestar announced a contract worth up to $6 million with the Polish startup Ares Shield to protect its satellites. The Ares Shield system pairs sensors and AI analytics with a high-power microwave emitter. Its CEO said the first systems would be delivered in 2028 or 2029.[40]
Lonestar also said in May 2026 that it had signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA Ames Research Center covering lunar data storage, off-world compute and space communications concepts.[37] DCD also reported the agreement, quoting Lonestar's statement.[46]
AI relevance
Lonestar's business is storage, and its link to AI is thin. Its flown hardware is an SSD paired with a single low-power Microchip PolarFire SoC chip. The company says it ran edge processing tasks for Valkyrie during transit, and Valkyrie's planned test was of its knowledge graph database, a database workload rather than model training or large-scale inference.[15][22] Its AI plans are newer and have not flown. The website now describes StarVault as "inference engines and orbital data embassies" and lists AI services such as sovereign language models.[43] A July 2026 post on Lonestar's site by Alex Wissner-Gross, who writes that he advises the company and has a financial interest in its investor 021T Capital, said its first sovereign models would fly on the first StarVault launch and run on an NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin next to about half a petabyte of storage.[39] An earlier post on the site about 021T's investment, which carries the same author links and a disclosure of a financial interest in 021T, said its mission details and customer counts were provided by Lonestar and other third parties and had not been independently verified.[38] The post itself contrasts the plan with Starcloud, which had run models on an orbiting NVIDIA H100 data-center GPU; a Jetson module is an embedded edge computer.[39] Lonestar presents its pitch in terms of sovereign AI and data jurisdiction: Stott has argued that a payload stays under the law of the state that licenses or launches it.[28]
Reception and assessments
Independent coverage has questioned the project's scale and economics. Blocks and Files wrote that calling a RISC-V processor and a Phison SSD a "datacenter" "might be considered overstated, but it's a start."[18] Tom's Hardware said some may think the label "a stretch" for an 8 TB device the size of a hardcover book.[21] Blocks and Files also argued that launch and lunar installation costs would likely remain far higher than building equivalent facilities on the ground, and that disaster-recovery sites in remote mines or spread across Earth might make a lunar site unnecessary.[18]
IEEE Spectrum quoted Kent Draper, chief commercial officer of IREN, who is not involved with Lonestar: "Anything requiring real-time compute would be challenging with 1.4-second latency." Draper also flagged low bandwidth, and Texas A&M Kingsville professor Amit Verma said, "We don't know how the cost is going to evolve in the future."[19] Stott has argued that the delay helps security, and the BBC noted that it matters little for long-term storage and backups.[17][28] In the same BBC article, Domenico Vicinanza of Anglia Ruskin University pointed to launch costs, the added weight of protection, power and cooling equipment, and the difficulty of repairs as obstacles for space-based data centers in general, and the BBC named cooling without gravity, space weather and debris as further problems.[28]
The flight record is short. Both lunar landers that carried Lonestar payloads landed on their sides and stopped working early.[10][23][29] DCD counted three off-Earth tests in April 2025.[27] The company now says it has flown four data centers to space, two of them to the Moon, without saying what the fourth was.[43]
References
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4Lonestar Data Holdings, "The Edge of the Cloud is Now in Space," Lonestar, February 3, 2022. lonestar.space/...dge-of-the-cloud-is-now-in-space
- ^Canonical, "Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Generated Art Created in Space as Prelude To Celestium Global Art and STEM Project," Canonical blog, February 1, 2022. canonical.com/...stium-global-art-and-stem-project
- ^1 ^2 ^3Peter Judge, "Stealthy startup Lonestar plans Moon-based data centers," DCD, April 20, 2022. datacenterdynamics.com/...-moon-based-data-centers
- ^1 ^2 ^3Lonestar Data Holdings, "Saving Earth's Data One Byte at a Time," Lonestar, April 19, 2022. lonestar.space/...g-earths-data-one-byte-at-a-time
- ^1 ^2Dan Robinson, "Lonestar bags $5m in seed funding for lunar datacenter project," The Register, March 7, 2023. theregister.com/...estar_secures_funding_for_lunar
- ^1 ^2Lonestar Data Holdings, "$5M Raised," Lonestar, March 6, 2023. lonestar.space/...5m-raised
- ^1 ^2 ^3Lonestar Data Holdings, "Lonestar Completes Oversubscribed Financing Round Raising $825k," Lonestar, October 10, 2023. lonestar.space/...bed-financing-round-raising-825k
- ^1 ^2Lonestar Data Holdings, "Moon Data Center Test," Lonestar, February 19, 2024. lonestar.space/...moon-data-center-test
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Lonestar Data Holdings, "Lonestar Lands on The Moon," Lonestar, February 27, 2024. lonestar.space/...lonestar-lands-on-the-moon
- ^1 ^2 ^3Sebastian Moss, "Intuitive Machines lands on the Moon, carrying virtual test data center," DCD, February 23, 2024. datacenterdynamics.com/...ying-virtual-data-center
- ^Sebastian Moss, "Lonestar Data tests data storage concept on lunar surface," DCD, February 28, 2024. datacenterdynamics.com/...concept-on-lunar-surface
- ^1 ^2Lonestar Data Holdings, "Lonestar Announces Freedom," Lonestar, April 8, 2024. lonestar.space/...lonestar-announces-freedom
- ^Lonestar Data Holdings and Bjarke Ingels Group, "Bjarke Ingels Group Designs Lonestar's Freedom Payload," Lonestar, May 7, 2024. lonestar.space/...esigns-lonestars-freedom-payload
- ^Rhys Knipe, "Space pioneers: Lonestar gears up to create a data centre on the Moon," Canonical blog, June 12, 2024. canonical.com/...lonestar-data-centre-moon
- ^1 ^2Valkyrie and Lonestar, "Valkyrie and Lonestar Data Holdings' AI Technology Is Taking One Giant Leap to the Moon, 55 Years After Apollo 11," Lonestar, August 29, 2024. lonestar.space/...he-moon-55-years-after-apollo-11
- ^1 ^2Rania Aniftos, "Imagine Dragons to Live-Debut 'Starfield' Song at One-Off Hollywood Bowl Show, Followed by a Broadcast From the Moon," Billboard, September 3, 2024. billboard.com/...roadcast-from-the-moon-1235765170
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Diana Goovaerts, "The moon is the next frontier for data center cowboys," Fierce Network, January 23, 2025. fierce-network.com/...frontier-data-center-cowboys
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4Chris Mellor, "Lonestar Data Holdings wants to use the Moon as a DR site," Blocks and Files, February 14, 2025. blocksandfiles.com/...1592166
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6Dina Genkina, "Is It Lunacy to Put a Data Center on the Moon?," IEEE Spectrum, February 25, 2025. spectrum.ieee.org/data-center-on-the-moon
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4Rebecca Szkutak, "Lonestar and Phison's data center infrastructure is headed to the moon," TechCrunch, February 26, 2025. techcrunch.com/...astructure-is-headed-to-the-moon
- ^1 ^2Mark Tyson, "Phison and Lonestar launched cornerstone of lunar data center into space last night, lands on the moon in early March," Tom's Hardware, February 27, 2025. tomshardware.com/...nds-on-the-moon-in-early-march
- ^1 ^2Lonestar Data Holdings, "Lunar Data Center Achieves Success," Lonestar, March 5, 2025. lonestar.space/...rst-success-en-route-to-the-moon
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Will Robinson-Smith, "Intuitive Machines' IM-2 Moon mission ends with lander on its side," Spaceflight Now, March 7, 2025. spaceflightnow.com/...nder-on-its-side-on-the-moon
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4Sebastian Moss, "Intuitive Machines lunar lander falls on its side, Lonestar Moon data center manages final task," DCD, March 8, 2025. datacenterdynamics.com/...enter-manages-final-task
- ^1 ^2Abby Jones, "Imagine Dragons Song Lands On The Moon," Stereogum, March 9, 2025. stereogum.com/...news
- ^1 ^2Sidus Space, "Sidus Space Signs Extended and Amended Preliminary $120M Agreement with Lonestar for Lunar Data Storage Spacecraft," Sidus Space, April 2, 2025. investors.sidusspace.com/...ended-preliminary-120m
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- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Emma Woollacott, "The plans to put data centres in orbit and on the Moon," BBC News, April 9, 2025. bbc.com/...cjewvpkw7weo
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- ^Laurence Russell, "Sidus Space advances $120m agreement with Lonestar, brings in Atomic-6," DCD, June 26, 2025. datacenterdynamics.com/...estar-brings-in-atomic-6
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- ^1 ^2 ^3Sidus Space, "Sidus Space and Lonestar Data Holdings, LLC Drive Rapid Progress on Commercial Pathfinder Mission with Completion of Kickoff Meeting and System Requirements Review," Sidus Space, November 18, 2025. investors.sidusspace.com/...ldings-llc-drive-rapid
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Sebastian Moss, "Lunar data center firm Lonestar Data raises $6.6m, swaps CEO," DCD, January 14, 2026. datacenterdynamics.com/...ata-raises-66m-swaps-ceo
- ^1 ^2 ^3Lonestar Data Holdings, "StarVault: The World's First Commercial Data Storage Service From Space," Lonestar, April 15, 2026. lonestar.space/...-data-storage-service-from-space
- ^Sidus Space, "Sidus Space Expands Existing Agreement with Lonestar Data Holdings, Inc. to Support Additional StarVault Orbital Data Storage Payload," Sidus Space, April 15, 2026. investors.sidusspace.com/...ent-with-lonestar-data
- ^Ben Ackman, "Lonestar Expands Launch Plans for Orbital Data Storage Payload," Via Satellite, April 15, 2026. satellitetoday.com/...orbital-data-storage-payload
- ^Lonestar Data Holdings, "Lonestar Signs NASA Space Act Agreement," Lonestar, May 11, 2026. lonestar.space/...-signs-nasa-space-act-agreement-
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4Lonestar Data Holdings, "021T Capital Joins Lonestar to Build the first Dyson Swarm for Sovereign AI and Storage," Lonestar, July 1, 2026. lonestar.space/...sovereign-global-ai-and-storage-
- ^1 ^2 ^3Alex Wisner Gross [sic], "Lonestar Announces Sovereign Language Models From Secure Orbital Data Centers," Lonestar, July 13, 2026. lonestar.space/...ounces-sovereign-language-models
- ^1 ^2Mike Wall, "Polish startup Ares Shield hired to protect data center satellites with high-power microwave weapons," Space.com, August 25, 2026. space.com/...hield-contract-lonestar-data-holdings
- ^Lonestar Data Holdings, "Lonestar Joins NYSE LaunchPad," Lonestar, September 6, 2026. lonestar.space/...ew-york-stock-exchange-launchpad
- ^1 ^2 ^3Sidus Space, "Sidus Space to Launch LizzieSat-4 and LizzieSat-5 Together on SpaceX Bandwagon-6," Sidus Space, September 28, 2026. investors.sidusspace.com/...d-lizziesat-5-together
- ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Lonestar Data Holdings, "Sovereign Secure Orbital Data Centers" (home page), Lonestar, accessed October 16, 2026. lonestar.space
- ^Lonestar Data Holdings, "Steve Eisele Joins Lonestar as President and Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)," Lonestar, December 4, 2023. lonestar.space/...-and-chief-revenue-officer-(cro)
- ^1 ^2 ^3Lonestar Data Holdings, "Lonestar's Data Center is Ready for the Moon," Lonestar, February 10, 2025. lonestar.space/...of-lonestars-data-center-payload
- ^Georgia Butler, "Lonestar signs Space Act Agreement with NASA for space-based digital infrastructure," DCD, May 19, 2026. datacenterdynamics.com/...d-digital-infrastructure
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