Filecoin Foundation and Lockheed Martin, an American aerospace tech company, announced Monday plans to create decentralized storage systems for the space industry.
This collaboration aims to create infrastructure for information sharing, faster communication, and lower storage costs between Earth and Space.
InterPlanetary File System is the main tool for decentralized storage. This protocol uses blockchain technology to store files based on content and places them using ‘content IDs’. Multiple computers can store the same file on IPFS so that even if one computer goes offline, another user can access the file from another computer in the network. Protocol Labs developed IPFS. This firm also piloted the development and implementation of Filecoin, which is a complementary protocol to IPFS.
These computers can therefore be found somewhere else than earth in order to facilitate faster extraterrestrial communications, such as GPS coordination or environmental monitoring.
Marta Belcher, president of Filecoin Foundation, explained this in a blog.
“Today’s centralized Internet model doesn’t work in space. Today’s Internet requires that every click results in data being retrieved from a central server. If you are on the Moon, you will experience a delay of several seconds as content is retrieved directly from Earth.
IPFS does not require data to travel back and forth between Earth and Earth every click. Instead, the IPFS “content ID” allows you to retrieve content from any location that is nearest, instead of being downloaded from a specific server at a particular place. This means that if another person on the Moon has already obtained the data, it doesn’t need to travel long distances and can be retrieved quickly from you instead of being sent back and forth from Earth every time you click.
Web3 projects often use IPFS to bypass centralized storage systems such as Amazon or Google. IPFS is how a Tezos-powered market called Hic and Nunc (now Teia), was able to remain online after its founder abruptly left the project.
