The Space Edge AI Computer: A Decoupled, Zero-Virtualization Payload for In-Orbit Generative AI under 12W

Yufei Xie, Yizhou Leng, Longbin Wu, Haowei Lee, Jinyang Xu, Zhaobo Zhang, Donggang Cao, Bingli Jiao, Xiaohui Duan

Keywords: Space Edge Computing, COTS Hardware, Edge LLMs, Fault-Tolerant Systems, Onboard Processing, Nanosatellites

TL;DR: A 12W/703.5g COTS-based edge computing payload featuring a decoupled architecture and zero-virtualization OS, validated over a 124-day LEO mission to enable agile, fault-tolerant generative AI and vision processing.

Abstract: Deploying advanced cognitive capabilities on nanosatellites faces extreme Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) constraints, cosmic radiation, and software rigidity. Current solutions relying on power-hungry data-center GPUs, heavy cloud-native virtualization, or rigid monolithic cold-spares are physically and operationally unviable for 10W-class nodes. In this paper, we propose the Space Edge AI Computer (EAC), a deeply decoupled 12W/703.5g COTS-centric payload engineered for the nanosatellite SWaP-C sweet spot. Hardware-wise, its physical M.2 decoupling allows for agile pre-launch accelerator swaps to resist chip obsolescence, while a mixed-reliability, Open-Collector (OC)-driven intervention mechanism provides granular intra-module storage switching to prevent entire-board failure. Software-wise, we design AIOS, a zero-virtualization spaceborne middleware that eschews heavy containers for OS-level POSIX process derivation, achieving extreme reconfiguration elasticity over weak telemetry links. We report a flawless initial 124-day bare-LEO flight validation campaign. Our in-orbit evaluations validated the first bare-LEO configurable SLM and RAG architecture for medical consultation (achieving a 7.7$\times$ latency reduction), concurrent heterogeneous vision pipelines via a strict isolated-frame protocol, and a pioneering feasibility study of an offline Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning model (DeepSeek-R1-Distill) under strict power envelopes. This establishes a pragmatic, flight-validated foundation for future distributed spaceborne autonomous agents.

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Submission Number: 32