5 October 2018 – It was announced today at the International Astronautical Congress 2018 that LinkX, the new decentralised ground station scheduling system, is now in beta testing on the EOSIO platform.

LinkX, which has been developed by Spacebit in collaboration with Goonhilly, is expected to roll out in the upcoming months as part of the Orbit:Linx global space communications platform. The platform aims to create a more efficient model for access to low-Earth and deep space communication networks using decentralised ground station networks enhanced with distributed ledger technology and smart contracts. The proposed model of interaction has been designed to lower the barrier to entry, opening new commercial opportunities and stimulating dialogue between academia, commerce, finance, industry and government.

LinkX aims to efficiently maximise the data transfer to and from Earth by creating a service that allows ground stations to analyse, organise and tokenise their active and idle time using a dedicated scheduling platform. Customers are then able to optimise and book their schedule according to their requirements e.g. budget, bandwidth, orbit, uplink/downlink time. This will help users avoid bottlenecks, downtime, double bookings and allow for the implementation of automation across systems in a flexible yet practical manner without having to upgrade lots of hardware.

Spacebit founder Pavlo Tanasyuk has noted, “Orbit:Linx is the first space communications platform which leverages the capabilities of blockchain technology, and has been developed as a cloud-native, container-based product from the ground up. We have chosen EOSIO for its flexibility and scalability, and expect it to continue growing as a leading blockchain architecture. Orbit:Linx will democratise access to space data and make space communications more accessible.”

With thousands and thousands more satellites planned in the next decade, ground stations are set to become a major limitation in space applications. We believe that automated, efficient systems such as Orbit:Linx will play a crucial role in the emerging space revolution.