Sophia and Kepler to marry orbital compute with optical links

COLORADO SPRINGS – Sophia Space will begin deploying edge compute nodes on Kepler Communications satellites in late 2026, under a strategic pact announced April 13.

Through the partnership, Sophia Space will demonstrate its Orbital Data Center (ODC) software, while relying on Kepler’s optical data relay network “to enable distributed, resilient compute infrastructure in space,” according to the news release.

“Partnering with Kepler allows us to accelerate our vision of bringing modular, low-latency compute to space while demonstrating real-world operational capability,” Sophia Space CEO and co-founder Rob DeMillo, said in a statement.

Strategic collaboration with Kepler, “opens the door to new opportunities” for Sophia’s Tile compute modules and ODC software, De Millo said, “while advancing a fundamentally new class of distributed computing systems designed to operate reliably in the harsh conditions of orbit.”

By working together, Sophia Space and Kepler will “validate not only software and hardware integration in orbit, but also distributed node management at scale, enabling orchestration of high-volume workloads across multiple spacecraft,” the news release said.

The collaboration also is designed to showcase multi-tenant, enterprise-grade compute operations in orbit. Potential applications include high-resolution global weather forecasting; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and space domain awareness.

Sophia Space, a Southern California startup, raised $10 million in February to accelerate development of edge computing nodes and ODCs.

Kepler recently invited organizations to submit payload concepts for competitively priced hosted opportunities on upcoming Kepler missions.