HPE provides ISS with ‘supercomputer’ for radiation experiments

On Monday, SpaceX will launch another Falcon 9 rocket. This time, the payload is an HPE computer intended for the ISS. NASA wants to investigate whether the computer is able to function in space without protection and what the effect of radiation is.

HPE reports that the ‘supercomputer’ is a high-performance cots system. This off-the-shelf computer will have to run in the space station for a year without additional hardware protection. The system has a water-cooled chassis and runs on Linux, but has no further protection because it adds weight and costs money and time, according to HPE.

The company wants to apply throttling based on the amount of radiation and thus reduce energy consumption. This is to prevent errors from occurring due to external effects. NASA reports that in this way it wants to determine whether such a system can continue to function flawlessly. The space agency says it wants to use the ‘spaceborne computer’ to run tasks that require a lot of performance and data in an environment with a lot of solar radiation, and to measure the effects of this.

According to HPE, the experiment contributes to a mission to Mars. Because most calculations are still done on Earth, the longer the distance from the spacecraft increases, to send the results. This could be remedied by performing the necessary calculations in space. The launch will take place Monday evening from Cape Canaveral.