SpaceCoMP: Distributed On-Board Processing for Live Earth Observation

SpaceCoMP: Distributed On-Board Processing for Live Earth Observation

LEO satellites collect terabytes of data daily but can only downlink a fraction of it during brief ground station passes. SpaceCoMP is a MapReduce-like framework for Earth Observation, built on LeoDOS – a distributed operating system for LEO constellations. By automatically assigning roles across satellites, collectors capture data over an area of interest, mappers transform it on-board, and a reducer downlinks only actionable results. This architecture enables continuous time-critical applications such as wildfire detection and disaster response, significantly reducing bottlenecks in traditional downlink-dependent pipelines.