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NASA Space Missions Fuel Massive Storage Projects: Page 3 of 5

SSDs and cosmic ray research

NASA, which recently recovered hard-drive data from the Columbia space-shuttle disaster, is clearly on the lookout for storage technologies capable of withstanding extreme conditions.

Earlier this month, for example, NASA announced that SSDs from South Korean vendor Mtron will provide the storage for the administration’s Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) project.

ANITA is a radio telescope for monitoring cosmic rays. It is attached to a stratospheric balloon floating 35 kilometers above the ground. Given this altitude and the weather conditions at the South Pole, NASA opted for robust SSD technology over more traditional magnetic or optical media.

In December, NASA will attach a number of 3.5-inch SATA SSDs to the stratospheric balloon, providing 1 Tbyte of storage, according to officials.

Image storage
NASA inevitably relies heavily on vast quantities of high-resolution images, both for its space flights and as part of its ongoing environmental research.