According to an announcement published on August 18, SpaceChain has successfully demonstrated the first use of blockchain hardware on the International Space Station, or ISS. This feat was made possible through a collaboration with the European Space Agency, which appears to have provided funding, hardware, and general support to the project.
The transaction was conducted by SpaceChain co-founder and CTO Jeff Garzik, who said that successfully signing this BTC transaction marks progress toward SpaceChain’s goal of building a secure, open source, and immutable blockchain satellite network.
To make the transaction possible, a ground station transmitted encrypted data to the ISS, where the hardware wallet containing the private key signed the transaction. SpaceChain’s experiments are about ensuring a robust connection between blockchain hardware in space and related infrastructure on Earth.
As Cointelegraph previously reported, SpaceChain delivered its hardware wallet technology to the ISS with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at the end of 2019.