Houston, we have a podcast.

Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center episode 183,

Space Born Computer.

I'm Gary Jordan and I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers,

and astronauts all to let you know what's going on in the world of human

spaceflight. Computing capabilities in space are quite reduced compared to what we

have here on the ground.

This creates challenges when transmitting data to and from space.

Although relying on ground-based computers works for space exploration to the moon

or in low Earth orbit,

the solution will not work for exploration

farther into the solar system, like to Mars.

Launched in 2017, the Spaceborn computer

from Hewlett Packard Enterprise serves as a proof of concept to test if commercial off-the-shelf computer systems can withstand the harsh environment of space and operate for a one-year mission.

It successfully performed more than a trillion calculations,

or a terra-flop per second for two hundred and seven days

without requiring a reset.

Now launching on Northrop Grumman's CRS 15 mission, Space Board Computer 2 builds upon the successes

of this first study to bring a significantly advanced computing system to the space station.

It dives deeper into exploring ways in which space exploration can be accelerated through

the use of the commercial off-the-shelf computer systems we use here on Earth without expensive time-consuming or bulky

...