Orbit:Linx

Orbit:Linx is a distributed-ledger-technology (DLT) platform built to analyze, organize and tokenize ground-to-space communications. It was developed by space technology company Spacebit in partnership with Goonhilly Earth Station, one of the world's largest satellite ground station networks, and was first announced at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Bremen in 2018.

The core of the platform, a scheduling system called LinkX, uses blockchain technology and smart contracts to integrate public and private ground stations into a single marketplace. Ground station operators can analyze, organize and tokenize their active and idle antenna time, allowing satellite operators to book communication windows more efficiently than through traditional, centrally brokered and largely manual scheduling processes. LinkX entered beta testing on the EOSIO blockchain platform, with the team also exploring IOTA-based architectures for future versions.

Orbit:Linx addresses a structural bottleneck in the space industry: thousands of terabytes of data pass daily between more than 2,000 active spacecraft and a fragmented patchwork of ground stations, most of which is coordinated manually. By creating a decentralized, tokenized marketplace for ground segment capacity, Orbit:Linx aims to lower costs and increase throughput for satellite operators, while giving ground station owners — including academic, commercial and government facilities — a way to monetize unused capacity.

The project was built as a cloud-native, container-based product and positioned as the first space communications platform to apply blockchain technology to ground-space link scheduling, stimulating collaboration between academia, commercial operators, finance and government around a shared space-data marketplace.