Lonestar, Phison's Data Center Infrastructure Targets Moon

Lonestar, a company focused on data storage and resilience, teamed up with Phison, a semiconductor and storage firm, to send a groundbreaking data center infrastructure to the moon aboard a SpaceX rocket this Wednesday. They're using Phison's Pascari SSDs, which are typically used in data centers, loaded with data from Lonestar's clients. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, set to touch down on the lunar surface on March 4, marks the beginning of what's planned to be the first ever lunar data center. Eventually, they aim to expand this to a whopping petabyte of storage.

Chris Stott, who founded Lonestar and serves as its chair and CEO, shared with TechCrunch that the concept of a space-based data center was born back in 2018, well before the AI boom sparked a surge in data center needs. He explained that clients were looking for off-world data storage to shield their information from earthly threats like climate disasters and cyberattacks.

“Humanity’s most precious item, outside of us, is data,” Stott remarked. “They see data as the new oil. I’d say it’s more precious than that.”

Stott highlighted that teaming up with Phison was a no-brainer, given Phison's experience with space missions, including providing storage for NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars. Phison also offers a custom storage design service called Imagine Plus, which has been key in tailoring solutions for unique projects like this.

“We were very excited when there’s a call from Chris,” said Michael Wu, Phison's general manager and president. “We took a standard product and were able to customize whatever they need for these products and we launched it. So it’s a very exciting journey.”

Lonestar and Phison started their collaboration back in 2021, working on SSDs specifically designed for space conditions. Stott noted that extensive testing was crucial since any issues in space can't be easily fixed.

“\[This is\] why SSDs are so important,” Stott explained. “No moving parts. It’s remarkable technology that’s allowing us to do what we’re doing for these governments and hopefully almost every government in the world as we go forward and almost every company and corporation.”

The technology was ready for launch since 2023, and a successful test launch was conducted earlier this year. This Wednesday's launch carried a variety of customer data, including from multiple governments focused on disaster recovery, a space agency experimenting with a large language model, and even the band Imagine Dragons, who sent a music video from the Starfield game soundtrack.

Lonestar isn't alone in this venture. Lumen Orbit, a startup from Y Combinator’s Summer 2024 batch, has also entered the race, rebranding as Starcloud after raising over $21 million in a seed round. As AI continues to drive demand for hardware, more companies might explore space-based storage, which offers virtually limitless capacity and solar power, advantages traditional data centers can't compete with.

If all goes according to plan, Lonestar aims to partner with satellite manufacturer Sidus Space to build six data storage spacecraft, with launches scheduled between 2027 and 2030.

“It’s fascinating to see the level of professionalism, it is tremendous,” Stott said. “This isn’t 60 years ago with the Apollo program. Apollo flight computers, they had 2 kilobytes of RAM and they had 36 kilobytes of storage. Here we are on this mission, flying 1 Gigabyte of RAM and 8 terabytes of storage with Phison Pascari. It’s tremendous.”