Ball, Seagate team to work on orbital data storage

BROOMFIELD and LONGMONT — Broomfield-based Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and Fremont, California-based Seagate Technology Holdings plc (Nasdaq: STX), with a facility in Longmont, are collaborating on developing data-processing and storage-technology systems in space.

The memorandum of understanding among Ball Aerospace, Seagate Technology and Seagate Federal Inc., doing business as Seagate Government Solutions, was recently signed.

“There is a need for on-orbit, high-density storage capabilities to meet new mission requirements — in essence space-ready storage that works and acts like terrestrial storage,” Mike Gazarik, Ball Aerospace’s vice president for engineering, said in a media release. “Therefore, we decided to collaborate on a proof-of-concept solution because Ball has the heritage and experience in designing and building space systems, while Seagate has extensive data storage expertise.”

The plan calls for lab and on-orbit demonstrations to test the concept, which would include Seagate-built technology to support testing of space memory on a Ball-built payload.

“Seagate is excited to collaborate with Ball Aerospace and Seagate Government Solutions to test our storage concept for Low-Earth Orbit satellites,” Ed Gage, vice president of Seagate Research, said in the media release. “We consider space the next frontier for data growth, enabled by high-capacity, low-cost secure storage devices. As a leader in our industry and with more than 40 years of expertise, we are uniquely positioned to solve the challenges of space systems that store large amounts of data.” 

During its more than 40-year existence, Seagate has shipped more than three billion terabytes of data capacity.

“Space is undergoing a significant change, enabled by declining launch costs and an increasing number of satellites,” said Mike Moritzkat, chief executive of Seagate Government Solutions. “We are convinced that the build-out of a Low-Earth Orbit space infrastructure will benefit from highly efficient storage. Our collaboration with Ball Aerospace combines the expertise of industry leaders to satisfy the growing need for space-based storage.”  

Ball Aerospace designs and builds space hardware for government and commercial customers. It also has more than 30 years of data-processing experience, including developing exploitation algorithms for satellite systems.Ball Aerospace, a division of Broomfield-based Ball Corp. (NYSE: BLL), said last week that it had been selected by the University of Central Florida to supply four imaging instruments for a lunar exploratory investigation. Ball also is building the Lunar Compact Infrared Imaging System instrument, which will be used to map mineral composition, temperature and other surface and subsurface characteristics of the moon for a mission expected to launch late next year.

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