Toronto-based Kepler Communications has begun selling on-orbit computing services through the Kepler Network, its upcoming constellation of data transfer satellites. The first customer is Houston, Texas-based Axiom Space, best known for completing the first privately crewed spaceflight to the International Space Station in 2022.
The first Kepler relay satellites are due to launch in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Kepler claims its clients can use the processing and storage to handle tasks faster, more securely, and with lower latency than if they had to send digital workloads to Earth. Customers can either buy or lease compute “payloads” that provide access to both data relay services and scheduled data transfers.
Axiom Space is buying two of these payloads for its Orbital Data Centre (ODC) nodes that will provide cloud computing for both public and private customers. Axiom and Kepler have been working on integrating their satellite connections since 2023.
The team-up will “accelerate the reality of on-orbit computing, enabling real-time decision making, enhanced mission autonomy, advanced imaging and [artificial intelligence or machine learning] insights, and other on-orbit processing applications tailored for space missions,” Kepler CEO Mina Mitry said in a statement.
Jason Aspiotis, Axiom’s global director of in-space data and security, maintained that Kepler was at the “forefront” of creating a private optical data relay network. He added it was key to Axiom’s ODC network offering a first wave of “space-to-space and space-to-ground cloud computing” facilities.
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The first Kepler relay satellites are due to launch in the fourth quarter of 2025, and will include both nine regular satellites as well as a “spare.” The next batch is planned for roughly two years later, and the company claims it will offer both wider low-Earth orbit coverage as well as faster data rates. It will also work with the European Space Agency’s High Throughput Optical Network (HydRON) program.
Kepler was founded in 2015 with the aim of providing constant, real-time data links in space. The company has raised over $200 million in equity so far, including a $122.7-million CAD Series C round in 2023. It reached a major milestone in March 2021, when a two-vehicle launch made it the largest satellite operator in Canada. The company had 15 satellites in orbit at the time.
The announcement comes just weeks after the federal government revealed it would help launch a new Telesat campus in late 2025. The veteran satellite company is launching a low-orbit satellite network, Telesat Lightspeed, that will provide broadband services and military communications. The first 198 satellites in that network are due to launch in 2026.
Feature image courtesy of Axiom Space.