Lonestar prepares Freedom lunar data center for space launch
Lonestar Data Holdings has successfully tested the integration of its Freedom lunar data center with the Intuitive Machines IM-2 Athena mission lander in preparation for a first quarter 2025 SpaceX Falcon 9 mission to install the first physical data center on the moon. Readers can watch Lonestar's presentation video here.
The Freedom data center will pave the path to providing Resiliency as a Service (RaaS) to customers on earth with global data backup and recovery services. Locating data centers on the moon places them far from the typical, earthly causes of data loss caused by natural disasters, criminal theft, and wars.
The initial data center will test and confirm the ability to operate a physical data center from the surface of the moon for data storage, enterprise, and other NDA customers. Tests include transmitting the song Children of Sky from the Bethesda video game Starfield back to earth. Curious readers can play the game to hear the song (available for the Xbox here on Amazon).
Related edge applications will also be tested. For example, delay tolerant networks (DTNs) will be tested as part of a Vint Cerf and the Solar System Internet project. An Automated Radiation Measurements for Aerospace Safety (ARMAS) sensor will provide real-time dosimeter data on the radiation levels encountered by the data center. This is critical to understand because high-energy radiation found in space can easily damage and destroy electronics and data storage devices without sufficient radiation shielding.
The solar-powered data center will be naturally cooled and have 8 TB of Phison solid state storage on-board. The Freedom uses the PolarFire FPGA for edge processing. The 3D-printed exterior was designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels of BIG.
Lonestar’s Data Center is ready for the Moon: Intuitive Machines and Lonestar Complete Final Installation and Testing of Lonestar’s Data Center Payload
February 10, 2025
Lonestar
Lonestar Data Holdings Announces that Freedom, its next Lunar Data Center mission, completed final lunar lander testing and arrived in Cape Canaveral onboard Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission lunar lander.
Lonestar Data Holdings, the first company in the world to provide a commercial data center service from the surface of the Moon, the leader in lunar edge processing and data storage, announced that its next Lunar Data Center, Freedom, successfully completed testing and integration into Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission lander, named Athena, and was delivered to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
In coordination with SpaceX, the liftoff of the IM-2 lunar mission is targeted for a multi-day launch window that opens no earlier than February 26, 2025. In case of unfavorable launch conditions, such as inclement weather, backup opportunities will be determined based on the lunar blackout window and other factors.
The Freedom Payload marks a significant leap forward in Lonestar’s ambitious vision to provide global backup, global refresh, and global restore, by establishing the first physical data center beyond Earth, offering Disaster Recovery and Resiliency as a Service (RaaS) premium data backup services, and edge processing capabilities from the ultimate edge: cislunar space and the lunar surface. Freedom Payload hosts a number of storage and edge processing customers.
Lonestar's first mission, featuring the Independence virtual data center payload, demonstrated unparalleled success in February 2024, operating seamlessly in both cislunar space and from the lunar surface. The data from this mission was successfully transmitted and retrieved, marking a significant milestone in the testing and development of the data services offering.
This success cleared the path for Lonestar’s Freedom Payload mission, which distinguishes itself as a groundbreaking technological achievement, the first data center off planet and the first to the Moon. the 3D-printed exterior of the data center has been designed by world renowned team of architect Bjarke Ingels of BIG to reflect the silhouettes of NASA Astronauts Charlie Duke (Apollo Moonwalker) and Nicole Stott (Space Station Space Walker) in tribute to the Artemis campaign.
Freedom was built for Lonestar by its contractor, SpaceBlt (formerly Skycorp). The data center is equipped with storage from Phison. Also on board is an ARMAS Radiation sensor being flown for SpaceBlt built by Environmental Technologies.
The Freedom Payload represents the first data center ever flown to the Moon and a new frontier in disaster recovery and processing capabilities, setting a new benchmark for what is possible in space-based data services. The capacity on Lonestar's upcoming mission is already sold out.
