HPE's Spaceborne Computer 4 to power AI experiments on Moon's south pole

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is set to send its Spaceborne Computer 4 (SBC4) to the Moon aboard Astrolab’s Flex Lunar Innovation Platform (FLIP) rover, scheduled for deployment near the south pole by the Griffin-1 lander later this year. The compact system, roughly 5 × 10 inches and an inch thick, houses a low-power CPU, a graphics processor and two mirrored 1 TB Kioxia SSDs, with hardware hardening achieved mainly through software RAID-1 and continuous health monitoring.

NASA plans to run tuned large-language-model retrieval-augmented generation tests, machine-learning analysis of visual and LiDAR data, and high-performance Linpack and HPCG benchmarks, potentially earning the first Top500 submission from a celestial body. SBC4’s design addresses lunar challenges such as vibration, temperature swings and radiation, leveraging HPE’s ISS experience and off-the-shelf components. Edge computing on FLIP will allow the rover to process data locally, conserving limited bandwidth back to Earth. The mission also serves as a testbed for Astrolab’s large wheels, developed with Venturi Space, and for future lunar technologies.