NEW YORK, March 2026 — Melagen Labs and Satlyt today announced a joint technology demonstration aboard the International Space Station (ISS) through the AEGIS MISSE platform.
The mission will generate one of the first in-orbit datasets evaluating how commercial AI processors perform when protected by advanced composite radiation shielding.
As satellite constellations scale toward tens of thousands of spacecraft, demand for onboard processing and radiation-resilient computing infrastructure is rapidly increasing.
The mission combines Melagen’s advanced radiation shielding materials with Satlyt’s onboard software platform, creating a fully integrated system designed to operate reliably in low Earth orbit.
This demonstration represents a critical validation step for next-generation space systems that require resilient materials and onboard data processing under real radiation exposure.
What the experiment will demonstrate
The payload will deploy on Aegis Aerospace’s MISSE (Materials International Space Station Experiment) platform on the ISS exterior for a six-month evaluation.
The payload’s onboard computer, a COTS processor, will be shielded with Melagen’s MLC1, and Satlyt will provide the onboard software layer hosted on the mission computer, managing sensor data acquisition, telemetry integrity, and operational validation.
The core objective is to demonstrate that a COTS AI processor, protected by MLC1, can operate reliably in orbit.
The system will perform autonomous operations, including fault detection, anomaly monitoring, and onboard data management. During flight, the system will downlink time-series radiation data for analysis and verification.
Validating in-orbit compute infrastructure
For Satlyt, this mission is a foundational step toward building Virtual AI Data Centers in Space.
Satlyt is developing distributed compute infrastructure that allows spacecraft to process, manage, and validate data directly in orbit.
The ISS mission provides an operational environment to test software-only payload integration, onboard data integrity under radiation conditions, resilient telemetry handling, and operational monitoring of compute resources.
Rather than positioning this as a product deployment, the demonstration serves as an in-orbit validation milestone for resilient compute infrastructure.
“This mission allows us to validate software-only integration on commercial hardware in a radiation environment,” said Rama Afullo, Founder and CEO of Satlyt. “It is an important step toward enabling distributed compute capabilities in orbit.”
Advancing radiation shielding performance
Melagen Labs has developed proprietary composite shielding materials designed to protect COTS electronics from radiation exposure in space.
Their first product offering is MLC1, their flagship proprietary shielding material.
The goal is for the MLC1 to enable the processor to operate reliably through six months of radiation exposure, validating the core thesis: advanced shielding makes high-performance COTS computing viable in space.
“Reliable shielding is foundational to enabling advanced electronics in space,” said Muhammad Hunain, Co-Founder and CEO of Melagen Labs. “By combining material validation with in-orbit compute monitoring, we are demonstrating an integrated approach to resilient space systems.”
How the partnership came together
Melagen Labs was one of six startups selected for the inaugural cohort of the Orbital Edge Accelerator, a collaboration between the ISS National Laboratory, Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI), E2MC, and Stellar Ventures. This mission is a direct result of that participation.
For both teams, this ISS mission represents an in-orbit validation milestone: Melagen validates MLC1’s shielding performance, and Satlyt validates its software stack on real hardware onboard the ISS.
Related
Read the original article here