Scientists Build Space Age, Space Computer

U.S. scientists say they are developing a space computer that will operate as much as 100 times faster than any computer in space today.

Engineering researchers at the University of Florida and Honeywell Aerospace are designing and building the computer that’s needed to process the rapidly increasing amounts of data being gathered by orbiting satellites. It is also needed to help space probes make more rapid decisions by themselves, independent of their Earth-bound minders.

To explore space and to support Earth and space science, there is a great need for much more processing power in space, said Alan George, UF’s principal investigator on the project.

Computers have become far more powerful and faster in recent decades, but these advances have been largely confined to Earth. That’s because space computers must be protected from cosmic radiation, and that slows their performance and increases their size and cost.

The UF-Honeywell computer will cope with cosmic rays through software that allows the computer to survive radiation-caused flaws or errors.

The completed computer is expected to fly into space aboard an unmanned ST8 rocket mission in February 2009.