Big data in space research: requirements and challenges

Speaker: Heinz-Wilhelm Hübers, DLR

Big data plays an increasingly important role in space research. Handling of big data on board of satellites poses challenges, which are not yet overcome. As an example, high resolution Earth observation from space produces data rates in the order of GByte/s. This is at the limit of on-board data storage, energy requirements and thermal loads as well as data downlink capabilities. I will present current space missions and instruments developed by DLR with respect to big data and discuss challenges regarding future missions.