DAVOS, Switzerland - Defense contractor Lockheed Martin and the Filecoin Foundation could soon make an open-source blockchain network accessible in space. The two organizations made the announcement Monday at a Filecoin Foundation event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting.
Lockheed and Filecoin plan to identify a space-ready platform that has the technology to operate an InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) node, determine the needs of that platform and find a test mission.
IPFS is an open-source data storage and sharing protocol designed to speed up data downloads by allowing network participants to store or share information. The idea is to reduce latency when downloading data from remote locations such as the moon, said Marta Belcher, Protocol Labs' director of policy and legal affairs.
Protocol Labs, a major player in the Filecoin ecosystem, is the original developer behind the IPFS code.
"We're reworking a lot of the technology that's not ready to be used in space," Belcher said.