Filecoin Foundation deploys decentralized file system to space

The Interplanetary File System (IPFS) will be deployed in orbit as part of a pioneering mission, according to a recent announcement by the Filecoin Foundation (FF).

The LM 400 Technology Demonstrator spacecraft from Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) will be used for the mission in 2023.

Filecoin Foundation tests IPFS-based communication

Before this, FF and Lockheed Martin revealed in May 2022 in Davos that they were working together to deploy IPFS in space to accelerate data transmission across great distances.

By taking advantage of decentralized storage in space and investigating use cases for how IPFS may improve interplanetary communication and data transport, this mission is the next stage in that endeavor.

The decentralized file system will be launched into space this year, according to a statement released on Jan.17 by the Filecoin Foundation, the organization in charge of overseeing the Filecoin network.

Per the statement, the mission’s objective is to showcase an IPFS use case for space-to-ground communication. The IPFS network will receive data from space that has been “content-addressed” and made accessible using IPFS.

Applications that support IPFS will be able to access the data from the IPFS network without knowing the precise location of the ground station that is storing it.

Filecoin Foundation President Marta Belcher stated in the announcement that IPFS eliminates the need for data to go back and forth from Earth with each click. The technology will be shown in the maiden launch. Once in orbit, the spacecraft from Lockheed Martin will run the test.

This experiment will be used to assess potential applications for decentralized space storage. The possibility of adopting IPFS for space-to-ground communication will receive special attention.

A peer-to-peer system for exchanging and storing files is IPFS. For each piece of material, the protocol employs a different identification.

Nodes can communicate with one another and share these identifiers by connecting to their peers. IPFS is the technology used by Filecoin, a decentralized storage network.

The internet’s centralized data storage is different from IPFS. It refers to content by its location on a server instead of by its distinctive identifiers. Connecting to the nearest network node that holds the specific identifier of the desired content is how IPFS data retrieval works.