Firefly\u2019s AI software will run on NVIDIA Jetson module onboard Elytra spacecraft in lunar orbit to enable faster data-driven insights from the Moon<\/p>\n
CEDAR PARK, Texas, April 8, 2026 \u2013 Firefly Aerospace<\/a> (Nasdaq: FLY), a market leading space and defense technology company, today announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to enable rapid on-orbit processing in lunar orbit for Firefly\u2019s Ocula<\/a> Moon imaging service. As part of the collaboration, an NVIDIA Jetson<\/a> module was embedded on high-resolution Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory telescopes<\/a> and delivered to Firefly\u2019s spacecraft facility ahead of integration on its Elytra orbital vehicle.<\/p>\n \u201cOcula is set to be the first commercial lunar imaging and mapping service available on the market, and it\u2019s coming at a critical time when other government-owned satellites in lunar orbit are nearing end of life,\u201d said Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. \u201cNow through our collaboration with NVIDIA, Ocula will be powered by the world\u2019s leading edge AI processor. This capability allows us to layer on our SciTec AI software as the \u2018brains\u2019 that give customers real-time data driven insights from the Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n Firefly\u2019s Ocula service will be activated onboard Elytra as part of Firefly\u2019s second mission to the Moon,\u00a0Blue Ghost Mission 2<\/a>, targeted to launch no earlier than late 2026. Elytra will first serve as a transfer vehicle and long-haul communications relay for Firefly\u2019s Blue Ghost lander. Elytra will then remain operational in lunar orbit for approximately five years, capturing continuous imagery for the Ocula service in support of advanced lunar surface mapping, mineral detection, and reconnaissance.<\/p>\n Firefly\u2019s Ocula data will be rapidly processed onboard Elytra and autonomously transmitted back to Earth utilizing the NVIDIA Jetson module combined with Firefly\u2019s AI software enabled by its SciTec subsidiary<\/a>. This allows Firefly to mitigate downlink constraints from the Moon by processing data on orbit before it is transmitted to Earth as real-time, actionable insights for government and commercial customers.<\/p>\n \u201cModern space missions generate massive volumes of data that require immediate processing to overcome the latency and bandwidth constraints of deep-space communications,\u201d said Deepu Talla, vice president of Robotics and Edge AI at NVIDIA. \u201cIntegrating the NVIDIA Jetson platform into Firefly\u2019s Elytra spacecraft enables autonomous, on-orbit AI processing that transforms raw lunar imagery into actionable insights in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n Firefly\u2019s AI-powered software will further enable advanced space domain awareness in lunar orbit. These AI algorithms and data fusion technologies, already proven in critical national security missions<\/a> in Earth orbit, will enable Elytra to leverage multiple data feeds onboard to more accurately track maneuvering objects and provide timely situational awareness of space operations occurring in the cislunar domain.<\/p>\n Following Blue Ghost Mission 2, Firefly is on contract to deploy two additional Elytra vehicles to lunar orbit as part of Blue Ghost Mission 3<\/a> and Mission 4<\/a>, enabling faster revisit times for space domain awareness, lunar surface mapping, and resource detection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Firefly\u2019s AI software will run on NVIDIA Jetson module onboard Elytra spacecraft in lunar orbit to enable faster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-573339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}