
The ISS Has a Supercomputer Never Mind the Fried Disks - eaguyhn
https://www.wired.com/story/the-iss-has-a-supercomputer-never-mind-the-fried-disks/
======
tlrobinson
_can run operations 30 to 100 times faster than a standard iPhone or tablet_

“Supercomputers” are now only 30-100 times faster than a mobile phone?

Not sure if that says more about the “supercomputer” or the phone.

This was also amusing:

 _The computer also remained operational even thought it lost its primary
upload and download connection to NASA up to eight times a day for periods
ranging from 3 seconds to 20 minutes. That kind of independence might prove
useful on an eventual moon base or mission to Mars, to work around
communications delays back to Earth._

As if a computer that continues running when its communication link goes down
is an accomplishment?

~~~
SilasX
>As if a computer that continues running when its communication link goes down
is an accomplishment?

These days? Compared to the typical case? Yes!

There was the story of Chrome (IIRC) crashing when it lost internet access.
(Yes, it should be unable to access websites, but it shouldn't _crash_.)

JIRA will stutter on text input if its AJAX API calls fail or are too heavy.

I've seen developers set up a local mode of an app that somehow sneaks in an
internet dependency.

Not even going to review Electron.

Similar overcoupling in the recent story about Google "no longer supporting
login" if you're not running JavaScript.

So yeah, it shouldn't merit praise, but a lot of systems fail even at that.

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
The saboteur deserves some praise too.

------
jschwartzi
It doesn't sound like they're doing anything novel compared to computing in
harsh environments here on Earth. It's pretty routine to monitor the output of
computation and cross-verify when an error is hazardous and there is risk of
corruption. Frequently when the system is used for some critical task and
there's an error with a less critical subsystem it will operate in a "degraded
state." And ECC RAM has been standard on these kinds of computers for ages.

The only thing novel about this is that they sent a computer designed in this
millennium and it survived the radiation unshielded.

Regarding the SSD/NAND flash, it makes sense that it would die relatively
quickly. It's constantly being bombarded by energetic particles and the cell
sizes, geometries, and write voltages are low and small enough that I could
see bit flips accumulating relatively quickly from cosmic rays. The drive's
firmware would then determine that the write block had failed and mark it
permanently as bad. What's probably needed here is a different firmware that
attempts to erase the block and then tests it and puts it back into service if
it passes. Or different cell geometries and higher write/erase voltages are
needed. It's an interesting note.

------
godelski
It sounds like the author missed the purpose of the experiment, when they
mentioned the moon. This would not work on the moon. The ISS is within the
radiation belts and has a lot of protection.

What this experiment is about is satellites. Which is a big deal. If you can
put stuff in LEO and use COTS parts, that saves a ton of money. And a super
computer is much bigger than the testing they've done with small systems and
cube SATs. Moon hardware will always have to be rad hard, but this shows that
the commercialization space can be cheaper than was previously thought.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Bury it a few feet and it'll work fine on the moon. With off-the-shelf rad-
unhardened tech, too.

~~~
TeMPOraL
That works for stuff you want to put on the Moon permanently. But the ships
that go there will need computers too, and so will surface installations.

~~~
godelski
Which brings up a fun thing that few people talk about: How do you ground?

Earth's ground is created by the giant revolving metal core. the Moon doesn't
have that. So how do you do that for big permanent systems on the Moon, or
Mars for that matter?

Rather I should say "How do you do it safely?", because it definitely is
possible already.

------
roywiggins
> The experiment was designed to test the performance of the HPE Spaceborne
> Computer, which is comprised of 32 separate cores that work together and can
> run operations 30 to 100 times faster than a standard iPhone or tablet

That doesn't sound that super to me! "100 times faster than a phone" just
doesn't have an impressive ring to it.

~~~
Bluecobra
It is compared to the 386 processors on the main command computers. :)

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/spacex-is-
launching-...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/spacex-is-launching-a-
supercomputer-to-the-international-space-station/)

~~~
Bartweiss
And it looks like it's not a clear winner over those, either.

It's sort of funny how many of the flaws of old computing hardware turned out
to be hugely beneficial for use in space. Bulky transistors that are
relatively safe from bit flipping, high power draw that means small
fluctuations don't cause outages, limited processing and storage that forced
efficiency and lowered the amount of _stuff_ exposed to radiation.

I'm not sure where the tipping points would be, but it wouldn't surprise me if
getting a 386 working in space is easier than getting a Pentium 4 to achieve
the same things.

------
setquk
This feels like "old HP" aka "good HP" back when they were at the forefront of
innovation.

Basically before they bought Compaq and sold off Agilent and when they
produced calculators that weren't made of poop.

~~~
ams6110
The project involves HPE, which is a separate company, not the PC and printer
Hewlett-Packard.

~~~
setquk
Yes but it's the same brand.

------
hindsightbias
> Hewlett Packard

The times change. Back when I worked in the MCC building, newcomers with an HP
calculator were told "you better not bring that into the building again."

The chief flight director (Gene Kranz) apparently had a thing about HP.

~~~
PascLeRasc
Weird, older engineers I know all love HP calculators for the RPN.

------
joshstrange
Now I'm just thinking of the logistics of running a datacenter in space.
Energy and cooling seem like easily solved problems (solar and, well, space as
solutions respectively) but I'm sure upload/download isn't great. That said
SpaceX's satellite internet stuff was promising gigabit speeds IIRC. And
obviously the shielding would be an issue.

~~~
KineticLensman
> Energy and cooling seem like easily solved problems

Unfortunately, there are a few orders of magnitude difference between the ISS
and a data centre. The ISS solar panels produce up to 120 kilowatts [0],
assuming the station is in the sun. A large data centre can use power upwards
of 30 GWh [1].

Launching nuclear reactors is also somewhat controversial.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_system_of_the_Inter...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_system_of_the_International_Space_Station)

[1]
[https://www.techuk.org/images/programmes/DataCentres/Data_Ce...](https://www.techuk.org/images/programmes/DataCentres/Data_Centres_and_Power.pdf)

~~~
Bartweiss
Interestingly, the ISS solar panels are actually below Earth-surface power
efficiency despite getting ~33% more incoming energy per area.

It looks like the biggest reason (other than "it's 20+ year old tech") is that
triple-junction panels weren't used to save weight. Rather than optimizing
power-per-inch or power-per-manufacturing-cost like we would on Earth, NASA
was targeting power-per-ounce, which meant gathering only the highest-power
wavelengths. Add to that some issues with panel degradation from radiation,
and it's a surprisingly tough way to gather energy long-term.

Short of sci-fi stuff like a space elevator or extraplanetary manufacturing,
I'm not sure how solvable this is. Does anyone know of ways of getting high
power output in space other than nuclear?

~~~
KineticLensman
> Does anyone know of ways of getting high power output in space other than
> nuclear?

The only thing we have at the moment is chemical rocket fuel. This is
obviously impractical for an orbiting data centre because of the continuous,
high launch costs.

------
sebazzz
Is it possible to better shield them or would that require putting the
computer in an airtight lead box?

~~~
scrumper
The article discusses that a bit. Water shielding is quite effective. Doesn't
have to be airtight.

Shielding will mitigate a lot, but redundant hardware, error detection and
correction, and resilient software will also be needed. It's a vastly more
hostile environment for digital devices than anywhere on earth.

------
ape4
If half the disks are fired, how are the astronauts!

~~~
ceejayoz
Humans have much better self-repair mechanisms.

Astronauts are a pretty small, fit population that get a lifetime of top-notch
healthcare and monitoring, so it's a little hard to isolate exactly what their
risks are.

That said, airline pilots are probably at greater risk, given the decades
worth of exposure they receive.

------
fjsolwmv
Can mods fix the grammatical abomination that is the title?

