COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – 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 companies.
“Partnering with Kepler allows us to accelerate our vision of bringing modular, low-latency compute to space while demonstrating real-world operational capability,” said Sophia Space CEO and co-founder Rob DeMillo.
The strategic collaboration with Kepler “opens the door to new opportunities” for Sophia’s Tile compute modules and ODC software, DeMillo 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 collaboration is also 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.
Founded by Dr. Leon Alkalai, Sophia Space was incubated and created by Mandala Space Ventures with the vision of building scalable, space-based computing infrastructure for Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The company’s modular, solar-powered, and passively cooled systems are engineered to enable low-latency, AI-optimized compute directly in space.
Sophia Space raised $10 million in February to accelerate development of its edge computing nodes and ODC platform.
Visit https://sophia.space to learn more.
