Thales Alenia Space and 3IPK have deployed the first blockchain network in space as part of the IMAGIN-e demonstration mission (ISS Mounted Accessible Global Imaging Nod-e). This pioneering technology is already aboard the International Space Station (ISS), where it will be updated regularly thanks to IMAGIN-e's innovative concept of operations implementing Space Edge Computing (SEC).

IMAGIN-e © Thales Alenia Space

The experimental IMAGIN-e payload, employing SEC applied to Earth-observation use cases, was launched towards the ISS on March 21, 2024 on a Dragon cargo mission. Following its installation outside the ISS, the payload was activated on August 27, 2024. Thales Alenia Space led the design, integration and validation of the IMAGIN-e payload at its Tres Cantos facility near Madrid, Spain. The payload includes optical sensors and a processing platform incorporating innovative software to execute and orchestrate multiple image-processing applications in orbit.

Through Microsoft’s Azure Space SDK (software development kit), the mission provides application developers with an infrastructure to deploy their own data processing applications directly in space.
The application developed by Thales Alenia Space in Italy enables fast processing of on-board sensor data by running multiple AI models, for example for cloud and water body detection, switching efficiently between minimizing time and resources. This way, less interesting data (e.g. cloudy images) can be quickly discarded while useful data is fully processed.

The application developed by 3IPK enables the synchronization of blockchain nodes in orbit and on Earth. By recording Earth-observation data on the blockchain directly as it originates from the sensor or at an early post-processing stage, this project represents a significant step forward in protecting data authenticity and traceability — an increasing challenge to counter the threat of data being faked by AI.

More applications based on AI algorithms will be deployed and tested on the IMAGIN-e payload in the coming months, in pursuit of diverse objectives such as terrain classification and anomaly detection in marine and terrestrial environments. These tools have been developed by international teams participating in the OrbitalAI challenge organized by Thales Alenia Space and Microsoft in collaboration with the Φ-lab of the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of the AI4EO program. Several applications and experiments developed in-house by Thales Alenia Space teams will also be tested and deployed.

The IMAGIN-e payload provides in-orbit demonstration opportunities for startups, institutions, and companies to validate their data processing and image analysis algorithms in a real space environment. The operational concept demonstrated in IMAGIN-e represents a key step in the evolution of spaceborne data processing capabilities while easing access for users.