Danish architecture studio BIG and technology company Lonestar Data Holdings Inc have created a data storage device for the moon, where it is designed to rest indefinitely after arrival.
The device, called Freedom Payload, is about the size of a hardback book and 1 kilogramme in mass. It will store data from "governments, enterprise businesses, and leading NGOs " in outer space.
It will be abroad a lunar lander flying to the moon later this year and function similarly to a hard drive, or the larger data centres spread across the globe. Lonestar Data Holdings Inc (Lonestar) claimed it is the first of its kind in space.
"In an unprecedented partnership between space and architectural innovation, Lonestar Data Holdings Inc. and the world-renowned architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group proudly present the newly designed Freedom Payload, the first data centre to be sent to space," said Lonestar. BIG has created a data centre for the Moon. Render by BIG
BIG 3D-printed the machine in the shape of the silhouettes of NASA astronauts Charles Duke and Nicole Stott.
"Illustrating BIG's ethos of giving form to the future, it is designed to feature the profiles of two NASA astronauts whose faces will cast changing shadows on the Moon throughout the lunar day (14 Earth days) for thousands of years to come," said BIG.
Duke's profile was used to represent the success of NASA's Apollo program, while Stott's profile was used as a symbol of the ongoing Artemis pro...