Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Thummala, Rajiv, Falco, Gregory
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.17054
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918256096313344
author Thummala, Rajiv
Falco, Gregory
author_facet Thummala, Rajiv
Falco, Gregory
contents Spacecraft increasingly rely on heterogeneous computing resources spanning onboard flight computers, orbital data centers, ground station edge nodes, and terrestrial cloud infrastructure. Selecting where a workload should execute is a nontrivial multi objective problem driven by latency, reliability, power, communication constraints, cost, and regulatory feasibility. This paper introduces a quantitative optimization framework that formalizes compute location selection through empirically measurable metrics, normalized scoring, feasibility constraints, and a unified utility function designed to operate under incomplete information. We evaluate the model on two representative workloads demonstrating how the framework compares compute tiers and identifies preferred deployment locations. The approach provides a structured, extensible method for mission designers to reason about compute placement in emerging space architectures.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_17054
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle When to compute in space
Thummala, Rajiv
Falco, Gregory
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Spacecraft increasingly rely on heterogeneous computing resources spanning onboard flight computers, orbital data centers, ground station edge nodes, and terrestrial cloud infrastructure. Selecting where a workload should execute is a nontrivial multi objective problem driven by latency, reliability, power, communication constraints, cost, and regulatory feasibility. This paper introduces a quantitative optimization framework that formalizes compute location selection through empirically measurable metrics, normalized scoring, feasibility constraints, and a unified utility function designed to operate under incomplete information. We evaluate the model on two representative workloads demonstrating how the framework compares compute tiers and identifies preferred deployment locations. The approach provides a structured, extensible method for mission designers to reason about compute placement in emerging space architectures.
title When to compute in space
topic Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.17054