{"id":721935,"date":"2026-06-23T21:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T21:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/721935\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T21:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T21:26:13","slug":"sophia-selects-apex-bus-for-on-orbit-computing-demonstration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/721935\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophia selects Apex bus for on-orbit computing demonstration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Sophia Space announced the selection June 22 of an <a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/satellite-maker-apexs-valuation-rises-to-2-3-billion-after-latest-200-million-raise\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apex<\/a> bus for its first orbital computing node.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pasadena, California-based Sophia plans to demonstrate its Thermal Integrated LEO Edge (TILE) compute module in 2027 in an Apex Nova bus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After looking at many potential platforms, Sophia selected Apex as its \u201cstrategic bus supplier,\u201d Sophia Space CEO Rob DeMillo told SpaceNews.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re bringing computing into orbit where it\u2019s needed most. This isn\u2019t just about faster data. It\u2019s about enabling satellites to make intelligent decisions autonomously, accelerating innovation across defense, commercial space, and Earth observation industries,\u201d DeMillo said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ian Cinnamon, Apex co-founder and CEO, said in a statement, \u201cSophia\u2019s vision for real-time orbital computing is exactly the kind of mission our Nova platform is designed to support, giving them a reliable, scalable path to bring edge computing capabilities to orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Accelerating first launch<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sophia Space also is finalizing a $7 million Simple Agreements for Future Equity (SAFE) financing round that will bring the startup\u2019s total funding to $22 million. (Through SAFEs, investors provide capital in exchange for the right to receive equity during a future funding round.) Sophia\u2019s SAFE investors included SparkLabs Group and Evergreen, a network of NVIDIA alumni. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After announcing a $10 million seed round in February, Sophia sought additional funds to accelerate its demonstration mission originally scheduled for early 2028.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have some potential customers in our pipeline that would go with us on that demo because they want to test out their applications on our TILEs,\u201d DeMillo said. \u201cThere\u2019s a number of vectors from various sides pushing us to do this earlier rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since Sophia was founded in 2023, <a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/riding-the-orbital-data-center-wave\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">interest and investment in space-based edge computing<\/a> have grown dramatically. With the additional funding, Sophia plans to expand its product development and engineering workforces, and establish strategic partnerships to accelerate deployment of the company\u2019s technology in government, commercial and international markets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sophia\u2019s pipeline includes customers seeking orbital computing nodes for civil, commercial and defense applications including the Pentagon\u2019s Golden Dome missile-defense initiative, DeMillo said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re building the backbone for the next era of space-to-space and space-to-Earth infrastructure,\u201d Leon Alkalai, Sophia founder and chief technology officer, said in a statement. \u201cWith Apex as a collaborator, satellites become autonomous computing hubs, able to act on data the moment it\u2019s generated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Sophia Space announced the selection June 22 of an Apex bus for its first orbital&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[243148,3115,132711,79,722,92518,193],"class_list":["post-721935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-apex","tag-fundraising","tag-orbital-data-centers","tag-science","tag-sn","tag-sophia-space","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721935","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=721935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}