Naturally, Rama Afullo’s first reaction was, “Let’s GOOOO,” he said. His company, Satlyt, is building software to turn existing satellites into data processing networks, similar to the orbital data center concept. And he just took another step closer to that.

After 13 months of work, the company had a successful test earlier this month. Working with the University of Houston on a NASA-funded research project, the test showed how the startup’s software can spread out tasks among computers while in orbit based on communication and available compute.

He said the goal is to create software that connects to multiple satellites to share computing assignments. Users of the system “will only need to define permissions, priorities, and operating limits,” while the software will make decisions within those limits, Afullo told TechCrunch. Its software is already on three satellites in orbit and the first step to that vision was this test. While the test used NASA-funded research, the agency has not yet selected it for any particular mission or chosen it to deploy its technology.

Afullo said NASA missions face the same constraints that Satlyt hopes to address — “limited computing resources, intermittent communication, and the need to get useful information back to people.” 

In this test, the company created a simulated network with four computers, four users, and eight services. The software then assessed how to assign and run tasks on those computers, accounting for compute and communication availability. One physical computer aboard a spacecraft ran the experiment, evaluating a simulated network of four computing hosts, then returned the results to Earth. The test proved that Satlyt’s software can generate plans on hardware in orbit, but more testing will be done to see how those computers transfer information amongst each other in practice when multiple physical computers are used. 

“The finding is a trade-off,” he said. One approach worked best, though it required more computing power than the others.

Still, Satlyt which was in the top five of TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield this year, calls this a win. “It’s a building block toward satellites sharing computing work,” he said.

NASA already has a technology network designed to move data through space even when communication links face delays. It started using this tech earlier this year and has already tested it on aircraft.

Afullo, who previously worked at Google and SpaceX, founded Satlyt in 2024 to turn spacecraft into virtual data centers. Its software helps operators run AI and other applications onboard, processing data closer to where it is collected and reducing dependence on downlinks, where satellites send data back to Earth, and ground-based analysis.  

For example, if a spacecraft sees a wildfire on Earth, such software can help it transmit relevant information much faster. “The goal is to get useful answers to people sooner and make better use of limited communication windows,” he said. “This experiment tested one planning component of that broader capability.” 

Satlyt said it still needs to test its own software under various workloads, hardware, and connectivity conditions. They also found an issue in how their software was time-referencing delays, Afullo said — it was stamping it as arrival time (the time it arrived) rather than elapsed delay (how long it took to arrive), which is a different metric. 

It doesn’t mean the experiment failed, however. “The software development, onboard execution, and return of outputs succeeded,” he said.

But Afullo said much work remains. “We also need usable communication links, permission from participating operators, secure transfers, resource scheduling, and recovery when a connection of computers becomes unavailable.” Satlyt is also researching applications beyond low Earth orbit, including supporting 4K video streaming from the Moon through its NASA-funded work.

“Our next technical steps are broader validation and integration, followed by demonstrations of computing work shared across separate spacecraft,” he said. “Longer term, we want developers to build applications for space without having to rebuild the infrastructure for every mission. That’s what virtual AI data centers in space mean to us.” 

This piece was updated.