Italy / Europe · Hosted orbital computing platform
Planetek AI-eXpress
This project focuses on a computing platform hosted aboard a spacecraft.
AI-eXpress is a Planetek-led platform for on-demand processing and application deployment aboard D-Orbit ION spacecraft, developed with AIKO. Three hosted nodes launched in 2025. A June 2026 announcement describes remotely requested processing on AIX-1+ aboard ION SCV-021 through a ten-minute GEO-relayed connection; this demonstrates a bounded trial, not continuous commercial service.
Planetek Italia / D-Orbit / AIKO · In-orbit operation demonstrated
Scope: Shared computing & storage · A shared computing or storage platform, or a program developing that infrastructure. Classification describes intended use, not operating capacity.
Figures retain their disclosed units and scope. Launched hardware does not establish demonstrated performance; targets may change. Not disclosed means no figure in the reviewed sources.
Viasat GEO relay connected the AIX-1+ computer aboard ION SCV-021 for remotely requested processing, telemetry, analytics and file transfers.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. The June 25, 2026 announcement describes one ten-minute trial with approximately twelve-second setup and round-trip latency below six seconds; it is not an ongoing service SLA or the necessarily exact trial date.
Announced 25 Jun 2026 · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
AIKO contributes the orbital_OLIVER autonomy framework and AI applications; the platform description also names MiRAGE.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. Exact mission-specific software versions and processor allocations are not disclosed.
Announced Publication date not supplied · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
Payload integration · Mission operations · Data services
D-Orbit provides ION hosted-payload accommodation and orbital cloud infrastructure for Planetek-led AI-eXpress.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. Hosted AIX nodes share ION carriers; they are not an additional independent spacecraft fleet.
Announced Publication date not supplied · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
Eni is named as developing research for low-latency, AI-aided onboard processing and direct-to-user information delivery.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. This is a disclosed research-participant role; commercial buying, paid utilization and achieved trial results remain unknown.
Announced Publication date not supplied · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
Flight / payload software · Research & feasibility studies
Planetek identifies IBM as deploying TerraMind.tiny for software-defined satellite services in the AI-eXpress program.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. The partner disclosure does not provide a dated completion result, measured accuracy or a paid software license.
Announced Publication date not supplied · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
PolarFire SoC and VectorBlox acceleration IP were flown on earlier AI-eXpress missions in 2025 for onboard-computing validation and characterization.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. The release does not allocate this configuration to AIX-1+; proposed integration into future D-Orbit avionics is a separate future scope. Radiation-hardness certification and achieved orbital throughput are not established.
Announced Publication date not supplied · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
NOSA is named as a participant validating REMIS intelligent-monitoring technology through the AI-eXpress in-orbit demonstration service.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. The source identifies S&T, VAKE and NOSA collectively; individual workshare, exact legal entity and completion results are not supplied.
Announced Publication date not supplied · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
S&T is named as a participant validating REMIS intelligent-monitoring technology through the AI-eXpress in-orbit demonstration service.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. The source identifies S&T, VAKE and NOSA collectively; individual workshare, exact legal entity and completion results are not supplied.
Announced Publication date not supplied · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-15 provided the disclosed November 28, 2025 launch role for the AIX-1+ node on its ION host.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. January 14, June 23 and November 28, 2025 are launch dates from the operator releases. This combines the observed launch role; it does not invent three independently signed customer contracts.
Announced Publication date not supplied · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
Ubotica is identified as experimenting with neural-network optimization and edge-AI portability in the AI-eXpress program.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. No completed experiment result or paid deployment is established by the participation statement.
Announced Publication date not supplied · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
VAKE is named as a participant validating REMIS intelligent-monitoring technology through the AI-eXpress in-orbit demonstration service.
This is an explicitly identified program, hardware or research role. No legal procurement buyer, contract signature date, paid order, value or guaranteed service level is disclosed. The source identifies S&T, VAKE and NOSA collectively; individual workshare, exact legal entity and completion results are not supplied.
Announced Publication date not supplied · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
No dated next mission milestone disclosed; continued application trials and platform development.
Manual review 30 Oct 2026. Compared operator launches and the GEO-relay trial with ESA's earlier design baseline. Hardware, power range, life and TTC are configuration-specific. AIX-1+ altitude accounts differ by about 10 km and remain attributed. Primary body last observed 23 Oct, 09:45 UTC. Source monitoring: ongoing. Source collection and substantive profile review are separate checks. Plans and dates may change.
The nodes are hosted on D-Orbit ION spacecraft and must not be counted as additional independent spacecraft alongside the host fleet.
Current node health, sustained availability, paying customers, utilization and commercial service-level commitments are not disclosed.
Exact hardware configurations and procurement terms differ by generation and are not fully allocated; no generic product rating is a demonstrated mission compute benchmark.
The approximately 12-second connection setup, ten-minute session and below-six-second round-trip latency describe one announced trial, not continuous network coverage.
Project updates
Verified announcements and milestones linked to this project, newest first.
ESA InCubed describes AI-express as a Planetek-led hybrid orbital edge ecosystem on D-Orbit ION infrastructure, with AIKO and on-demand EO processing, application deployment and hosted-resource services. Its page describes the funded product architecture and an ongoing design phase; later primary mission releases separately establish the 2025 hosted-node launches and 2026 connected-processing trial.
Planetek reports the January 14, 2025 launch of AIX-1p, named Caution: Edge Ahead, aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 Transporter-12 mission. The precursor was designed to validate in-orbit data-processing and software-execution building blocks for the AI-eXpress satellite-as-a-service concept. The ESA InCubed co-funded programme brings together Planetek, D-Orbit and AIKO, using D-Orbit ION hosting, AIKO autonomy software and Planetek SPACEDGE services. The January release's planned June and October follow-on launches are historical targets: later operator evidence records AIX-1 on June 23 and AIX-1+ on November 28, 2025.
Planetek reports that AIX-1 launched on June 23, 2025 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg, following the January AIX-1p precursor. The release describes an Earth-observation camera, a low-latency communications module and a modular software framework for onboard processing and orchestration. It names D-Orbit's ION hosting and space-cloud infrastructure, AIKO's orbital_OLIVER autonomy framework and AI applications, and Planetek's SPACEDGE services, with ESA InCubed co-funding. This was the second hosted node in the existing AI-eXpress programme. The later platform timeline records the third node's November 28, 2025 launch.
Planetek reports a live connection to the AIX-1+ onboard computer hosted on D-Orbit's INN04 ION SCV-021, using Viasat GEO relay services. The team established the link in approximately 12 seconds, maintained it for ten minutes and reported round-trip latency below six seconds over an approximately 140,000 km communications path. During that session it remotely requested data processing, housekeeping telemetry, analytics and file transfers. The demonstration belongs to the Planetek, D-Orbit and AIKO AI-eXpress programme co-funded by ESA InCubed. Planetek's platform timeline dates the announcement to June 25, 2026. The exact trial execution date is not disclosed.
