HPE announced HPE Spaceborne Computer-4, a compute module to run AI inference and, per HPE, the first HPC benchmarks on the Moon. Fitted with KIOXIA SSDs, the module will launch as a payload on Astrolab’s FLIP rover, delivered to the lunar south pole by Voyager Technologies’ Griffin-1 lander in late 2026. This mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which brings science, exploration and technology payloads from commercial vendors to the Moon.

HPE’s Dr. Mark Fernandez, principal investigator for HPE Spaceborne Computer-2, holds a Spaceborne Computer-4 mockup. The entire system sits inside an aluminum chassis measuring roughly 249 mm by 132 mm by 26 mm.

HPE hosted a press event at Astrolab’s Hawthorne, California facility. The one-hour panel featured Francisco Cordova, COO of the ISS National Laboratory; HPE’s Scott Wiest; Astrolab CEO Jaret Matthews; and KIOXIA’s Faraz Velani. After the panel, guests toured the facility, including the future mission control powered by HP Omen systems and its IT infrastructure built on HPE Alletra Storage and HPE Private Cloud PC3000.

We also visited the clean room and got a close look at the flight FLIP rover bound for the Moon. We learned about the rover, its mission, and how HPE’s Spaceborne Computer-4 will locally process scientific data from FLIP’s instruments on the lunar surface. The panel, moderated by HPE’s Norm Follett, took place beside a FLIP mockup.

Astrolab’s FLIP Rover

Astrolab’s FLIP rover waits in its clean room for its late-2026 launch. Its vertical flat panel forms the rear of the solar array, deployed this way because FLIP will work at the lunar south pole, where the Sun hovers near the horizon during lunar daytime.

FLIP, short for Flex Lunar Innovation Platform, is a lunar rover built by Astrolab. It carries multiple scientific payloads plus HPE Spaceborne Computer-4. It will land at the lunar south pole to gather research data supporting a potential lunar base. The south pole draws major interest because its permanently shadowed craters may hold abundant water ice, a vital resource for future lunar outposts.

FLIP’s most visible feature is its large, Venturi-designed wheels, engineered to traverse difficult lunar regolith. FLIP will test and mature several components and subsystems for Astrolab’s future FLEX rover, including full-size batteries, tires, avionics, sensors and software.

HPE Spaceborne Computer-4: Software and AI Applications

Software validation is where HPE Spaceborne Computer-4 comes in. Its goal is to run as much AI inference and local processing as possible on the lunar south pole. The software stack runs inside containers on a Linux-based operating system.

For benchmarking, HPE will run High-Performance LINPACK (HPL) to measure sustained performance within tight constraints and High-Performance Conjugate Gradient (HPCG) to evaluate behavior under memory- and communication-heavy workloads. These benchmarks will reveal how the system performs in lunar conditions and deliver valuable technical data for later missions.

Multiple core AI applications will also run onboard, including an LLM RAG system. It lets a large language model leverage mission-specific information to generate context-aware insights at the lunar edge and can also speed up searches across text-heavy mission documents back on Earth.

HPE is not the only user of the module’s compute resources. NASA will run its FLUID experiment, an AI neural network trained on Earth, Moon and ISS data to coordinate three separate AI models, alongside a tuned LLM test for onboard document search and interpretation. Deloitte’s Silent Shield intrusion detection system will provide near-real-time predictive cyber analytics and anomaly detection.

FLIP’s instrument suite includes headlights, camera arrays, LiDAR and an image projector, plus an Apollo-program American flag patch. Spaceborne Computer-4 will also run LLM vision inference to interpret data from the rover’s many cameras. Local visual processing removes the need to stream raw visual data continuously to Earth — a big benefit given the slow downlink rates from the lunar south pole.

LiDAR data will be processed for mapping, navigation and terrain analysis. Navigation especially depends on LiDAR processing so FLIP can move safely across lunar ground. Light-speed round-trip communication to the Moon takes at least 2.6 seconds, and ground processing adds further delay, making real-time remote control impossible. Like Mars rovers, FLIP must navigate autonomously.

HPE Spaceborne Computer-4: Hardware and Space Challenges

The module contains two 1TB KIOXIA BG6 SSDs. Built for the unique limits of a lunar rover around power, heat and size, Spaceborne Computer-4 uses a low-power CPU and GPU from an undisclosed vendor and storage from long-time partner KIOXIA. The drive is an off-the-shelf BG6 client SSD with its seldom-used 5W power cap enabled — a feature perfect for this mission.

Thermal management uses a custom aluminum chassis integrated into the rover’s thermal system. Waste heat from the computer helps keep other rover electronics warm through brutal lunar nights, when surface temperatures drop to roughly -280 °F and polar shadowed craters get even colder. The system is fanless, as the Moon has no air. The chassis and components fit FLIP’s footprint and weigh only 2.6 pounds.

Cosmic ray exposure is another key lunar challenge. Earth’s atmosphere blocks most cosmic rays and solar charged particles, so bit-flip single-event upsets (SEUs) are rare here. On the Moon, FLIP operates unprotected by a magnetic field or atmosphere. HPE applies almost no dedicated radiation shielding on Spaceborne Computer-4, instead relying on software resilience. The two KIOXIA drives run mirrored, and repeated internal software checks catch errors. This costs some CPU capacity but is essential for reliability.

Conclusion

Spaceborne Computer-4 is HPE’s newest space-focused compute system; Spaceborne Computer-2 has delivered science data aboard the ISS for years. Bill Hewlett and David Packard also have ties to the Apollo program, and some of HP’s earliest instruments flew on U.S. satellites in the late 1950s. This upcoming mission is exciting to follow, and we look forward to all the discoveries FLIP and Spaceborne Computer-4 will deliver. See you among the stars!

Beijing Qianxing Jietong Technology Co., Ltd.
Sandy Yang/Global Strategy Director
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Email: yangyd@qianxingdata.com
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