Cambrian Works, an innovator in technological connections between Earth and space, is proud to announce that its GigRouter flight unit is ready for launch aboard Aegis Aerospace’s MISSE-21 carrier. With this launch to kick off their 2025 mission schedule, Cambrian Works is slated to achieve extended space heritage for the first time, expanding the possibilities for Internet-like network connectivity beyond the limitations of land.
The GigRouter is a pioneering product in space communication devices, aimed at seamlessly integrating edge computing and networking into space systems. As a foundational piece in Cambrian Works’ vision to incorporate the terrestrial internet into space, the GigRouter reaches across spacecraft crosslinks to create a global fabric of widely dispersed space platforms. Bound for Aegis Aerospace’s MISSE Flight Facility platform on the International Space Station, this is the first GigRouter to see space.
“After extensive technology validation, comprehensive pre-launch environmental testing, and even radiation testing to validate lifetime and utility in multiple orbits, the GigRouter is ready for flight heritage – the badge of a technology that is ready for operational use in Space,” says Cambrian Works CEO Victor Aguero. “The long-duration operation in space enables us to fully validate performance under real-world effects encountered in Space to ensure our customers that we are ready to support their mission-critical communications.”
Taking off in the fall of this year, the GigRouter will be delivered to the Aegis Aerospace-operated MISSE platform for a six-month tenure in space. In this time, the Cambrian Works team will observe how the system works in the space environment, monitoring containerized applications, collecting telemetry including temperature and radiation data, and testing Ethernet bandwidth on its 1 and 10 Gigabit per second ports.
“For this mission, our first in orbit, we learned to operate ‘hands-off,’” says Integration Lead, Adam Orris. “We practiced this independent approach from the start, when the Aegis Aerospace team smoothly integrated the unit without our assistance. In most of our processes to date, we’ve been able to physically connect our GigRouter to our network to stream telemetry to our custom Console or gather more detailed telemetry through other web-based tools. Even in long-duration tests where we are disconnected from outside networks, we could connect a test laptop via the debug terminal or secure shell. But with shared data bandwidth on the Space Station, we can only periodically download or upload files–we have no immediate connection. In preparation for this, we made our software more autonomous and fault-tolerant, with more detailed telemetry available. We also created periodic status messages that can be stored and downloaded. While installed on the station, Aegis Aerospace will provide a data and power interface. We are excited to continue working with the helpful and friendly Aegis Aerospace team as we check in on our GigRouter–our first telemetry from orbit!”
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