Sterna
EDGX
Sterna is a flight-proven, space-hardened edge computing platform designed to provide supercomputing capabilities in orbit for ambitious satellite payloads.
Key figurescomparable across the catalogue
- Power
- 10 W
Normalised to common units so this product can be compared with others in its category. The supplier's own wording is below.
As published by the supplier
- Computational Power
- Up to 157 TOPS (NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX 16GB)
- Baseline Computational Power
- 100 TOPS (NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX 16GB)
- Scalable Power
- 10W–40W (Jetson Orin Nano or NX)
- Power Presets
- 10W, 15W, 25W, 40W
- Launch Compatibility
- Falcon 9, Ariane 6, Vega-C
- Random Vibration Test
- 14.14 g RMS
- Quasi-Static Sine Burst Test
- 21.25 g
- Operational Temperature Range (in vacuum)
- -20°C to +65°C
- Non-Operational TVAC Cycles
- -40°C to +80°C
- Operational TVAC Cycles
- -25°C to +70°C
- Radiation System-Wide Qualification
- 200 MeV protons
- TID Tolerance
- Beyond 30 krad(Si)
- SEE Performance Destructive LET Threshold
- 38 MeV·cm2/mg
About
Sterna is an edge computing platform built to power ambitious satellite payloads by shifting intelligence from Earth to orbit. It offers raw computational power, allowing for immediate action on critical intelligence. The platform can achieve up to 157 TOPS by deploying the NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX 16GB, with a baseline of 100 TOPS in orbit, and a software unlock for power-rich systems to reach 157 TOPS. It features scalable power from 10W to 40W, allowing users to tailor the power-to-performance ratio by equipping either a Jetson Orin Nano or NX. Granular software control is available through stable, enforced presets (10W, 15W, 25W, 40W) or custom profiles. Sterna supports the full NVIDIA Ecosystem, including CUDA, TensorRT, and cuDNN, enabling a seamless “lab-to-launch” workflow for deploying AI models developed on Earth directly onto satellites. The system is engineered for mission certainty and has been validated against extreme conditions. It is launch-ready and compatible with Falcon 9, Ariane 6, and Vega-C. It has survived a 14.14 g RMS random vibration test and 21.25 g quasi-static sine burst, with 100% operational health post-test. Thermal resilience includes an operational range of -20°C to +65°C in the vacuum of space, and it is TVAC qualified for non-operational cycles from -40°C to +80°C and operational cycles from -25°C to +70°C. Radiation tolerance is ensured through system-wide qualification with 200 MeV protons, component reliability with TID tolerance beyond 30 krad(Si) and robust SEE performance (destructive LET threshold of 38 MeV·cm2/mg), and data protection through targeted irradiation testing on critical components like the SSD. Sterna operates with the SpaceFeather™ Software ecosystem, which includes an autonomous supervisor on a dedicated chip for hardware and software monitoring, ensuring system integrity and reliable command and control. The containerised application framework allows for in-orbit application management and updates, with a custom SDK optimizing and compressing Docker image updates to minimize uplink costs. Radiation Shielding Software provides hierarchical fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR) across the software stack to counter radiation-induced events, reducing system downtime and ensuring high availability.
Documentation
Need the full ICD, test reports or a specific revision? Ask the supplier directly.