Data storage company Lonestar and semiconductor firm Phison launched a groundbreaking data center infrastructure aboard a SpaceX rocket on Wednesday, destined for the moon.
The mission carries Phison’s Pascari storage—solid-state drives (SSDs) built specifically for data centers—loaded with data from Lonestar’s clients. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, set to land on the moon on March 4, marks the beginning of the world’s first lunar data center, a project the companies aim to expand to eventually hold a petabyte of storage.
Chris Stott, founder, chairman, and CEO of Lonestar, shared with TechCrunch that the concept of building a data center in space originated in 2018, long before the current AI-driven surge in data center demand. He explained that clients were seeking off-Earth storage options to protect data from threats like climate-related disasters and cyberattacks.
“Humanity’s most precious resource, aside from ourselves, is data,” Stott said. “People see data as the new oil, but I’d argue it’s even more valuable than that.”
Stott added that partnering with Phison to bring the space data center vision to life was a logical choice. Phison already provides storage solutions for NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars and offers a service called Imagine Plus, which customizes storage solutions for unique projects.
“We were thrilled when Chris reached out,” said Michael Wu, Phison’s general manager and president. “We took a standard product and customized it to meet their needs, and then launched it. It’s a very exciting journey.”
The partnership between Lonestar and Phison began in 2021, and since then, they’ve been developing SSD storage units designed specifically for space. Stott emphasized the importance of reliability in space technology, explaining that once launched, these systems can’t easily be repaired if something goes wrong.
“This is why SSDs are so critical,” Stott explained. “They have no moving parts. This technology is allowing us to work with governments and, hopefully, companies and governments all over the world in the future.”
The technology was launch-ready by 2023, with a successful test flight conducted earlier in 2024.
Wednesday’s mission included various types of client data, ranging from government disaster recovery information to a space agency testing a large language model. Even the band Imagine Dragons joined in, sending a music video for their song featured in the Starfield video game soundtrack.
Lonestar is not alone in pursuing space-based data centers. A competing startup, Lumen Orbit, emerged from Y Combinator’s Summer 2024 batch, raising over $21 million and rebranding as Starcloud. As AI-driven demand for hardware continues to grow, space-based storage solutions are becoming increasingly attractive due to their near-infinite storage capacity and access to solar energy—advantages Earth-bound data centers cannot match.
Looking ahead, Lonestar plans to collaborate with satellite manufacturer Sidus Space to build six storage spacecraft, with plans to launch them between 2027 and 2030.
“It’s amazing to see the level of professionalism,” Stott remarked. “This isn’t like the Apollo program 60 years ago, where the flight computers had just 2 kilobytes of RAM and 36 kilobytes of storage. Today, we’re flying with 1 gigabyte of RAM and 8 terabytes of storage using Phison’s Pascari. It’s incredible.”
