SpaceX Rocket to Fire Hewlett Packard Supercomputer Into Orbit

Space Exploration Technologies will carry a Hewlett Packard computing system that is designed to last longer and may help pave the way for extended periods of space travel, such as the journey to Mars, according to Bloomberg.

SpaceX will take the system, a box that can process data from experiments, on its Dragon Spacecraft that will be launched from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 14 to the International Space Station.

Other computing systems used in space have to be replaced frequently because the difficult conditions caused them to degrade, a spokesman for Hewlett Packard said. Its Spaceborne Computer is designed to last for a year, which it says is roughly the amount of time it would take to travel to Mars.

“A mission to Mars will require sophisticated on-board computing resources that are capable of extended periods of uptime,“ Alain Andreoli, senior vice president and General Manager at Hewlett Packard’s Data Center Infrastructure Group, said in a blog post. “To meet these requirements, we need to improve technology’s viability in space in order to better ensure mission success,“ Andreoli said. “By sending a supercomputer to space, HPE is taking the first step in that direction.“