Rewriting the Thousand-Year Lunar Quest with Data as Ink

Today, Chang'e lunar probes journey across 380,000 km of outer space, streaming massive volumes of survey data on lunar topography, elemental and mineral composition, shallow subsurface structures, and the Earth-Moon space environment. China's lunar exploration has evolved from poetic musings into data-powered scientific examination.

The Lunar Exploration Program (LEP) Ground Application System, built and operated by the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), is now at the center of this thousand-year pursuit. It transforms raw lunar data into invaluable scientific discoveries, penning new chapters of lunar exploration to satisfy the age-old curiosities of our ancient predecessors.

Reinventing Lunar Exploration

"Jade Hare is not companion boon
For lonely Goddess of the Moon."

Ancient peoples, lacking observation tools, relied solely on the naked eye and their imaginations to create timeless myths such as Moon Goddess Chang'e and Jade Hare. Telescopes later revealed that the rabbit-like patterns were the reflections of lunar surface landforms. Today, high-resolution data from lunar exploration missions has enabled an unparalleled level of precision for lunar research.

One of the five core systems of China's LEP, the Ground Application System developed and operated by the NAOC serves as the program's dedicated data steward. Throughout each mission, the system coordinates satellite observation targets and task schedules. It receives massive volumes of lunar data via large-aperture ground antennas, processes raw signals into standardized scientific formats, and supports advanced research.

This system delivers end-to-end mission support distinct from early exploration missions that prioritized coverage at the cost of precision.

• Pre-mission: The system optimizes payload layouts aligned with scientific objectives, and drafts precise observation roadmaps, sampling strategies, and operational plans.

• During missions: End-to-end oversight covers status monitoring, command generation, and data uploads. Two ground stations in Miyun (Beijing) and Wuqing (Tianjin) work in tandem to receive downlink probe data, enabling real-time local storage and backup.

• Post-mission: The system handles continued data processing, scientific interpretation, and applied research. It manages lunar sample reception, long-term storage, unsealing, processing, preparation, testing, and analysis. Per program standards, it manages and distributes lunar datasets and samples to researchers worldwide.

The system's value stretches far beyond pure scientific research. Processed high-definition lunar images and regolith composition data are converted into diverse formats for different applications, including 3D models, popular science documentaries, and immersive interactive exhibits. Digital modeling reconstructs crater landscapes to give the public an unfiltered look at our nearest celestial neighbor.

Standardized datasets generated by the Ground Application System serve China's scientific research teams and are openly shared with researchers around the world through a dedicated data release platform. A thousand years ago we turned to the Moon with questions; today we share our answers with the world, advancing global lunar science collaboratively.

Three New Challenges in Mass Data Storage

Data volumes from lunar exploration missions are surging exponentially, creating unprecedented storage challenges for the Ground Application System:

Challenge 1: Balancing Resilience, Reliability, Openness, and Sharing

Lunar exploration data is an essential, non-renewable scientific research asset. Data loss, damage, or leakage would cause irreversible losses. At the same time, open access and data sharing are needed to advance global lunar science. The storage system needs to provide multi-layer resilience and a convenient, efficient data sharing and access mechanism.

Challenge 2: Storing PB-Scale Data for a Long Term

Precision sensors on lunar probes such as high-resolution cameras, imaging spectrometers, and probing radar constantly produce PB-scale scientific data. Lunar missions are long and expensive, and the data from these missions are irreplaceable scientific research resources and national strategic assets that require the most secure long-term storage. Storage requirements are continually being increased by upgraded detection technology and longer data retention periods. The storage system must provide different protocol interfaces for diverse applications, while having the scalability for future growth.

Challenge 3: Meeting High-Performance Computing Needs

Single research computations frequently process datasets from the hundreds of GBs to TB scale. To support mixed high-performance computing, big data, and AI workloads, the storage system needs a minimum of 30 GB/s sustained throughput and ultra-low latency to eliminate the storage bottlenecks that hinder scientific research.

Innovative Solution as a Strong Data Foundation

To tackle these challenges, the NAOC chose to work with Huawei and used Huawei's OceanStor Pacific scale-out storage system to form a resilient, reliable, efficient, and flexible storage foundation for lunar exploration data.

Robust resilience and reliability: multidimensional protection for data integrity

The Huawei OceanStor Pacific scale-out storage system is equipped with advanced reliability features like dynamic erasure coding (EC), end-to-end data integrity field (DIF) verification, and proactive health detection. The system forms a multi-layered data protection system that ensures the resilience of lunar exploration data. An industry-unique lossless interworking capability among file, object, and HDFS protocols enables data sharing and openness under strict security controls. This meets the complex needs of global collaboration on lunar research.

Elastic scalability: effortless handling of growing data

The solution uses an industry-leading high-density hardware design, with each cabinet providing several PBs of storage capacity. The intelligent tiering between SSD-based and HDD-based models automatically allocates storage resources based on data access frequency: hot data is stored on high-performance SSDs, while warm and cold data is migrated to large-capacity HDDs. This ensures massive storage capacity while optimizing storage efficiency and total cost of ownership (TCO).

Superior performance: efficient support for scientific research and analysis

The OceanStor Pacific all-flash scale-out storage runs on a high-performance architecture to deliver ultra-high IOPS and low latency in milliseconds, enabling pre-inspection data to be written to ground stations in real time. This meets the Ground Application System's needs for high-throughput, low-latency data reception, guaranteeing timely and complete capture of every frame of data transmitted from 380,000 km away. Furthermore, it reserves abundant computing power for scientific analysis, which significantly shortens data processing and speeds up research output.

Journey Toward Vaster Cosmos

"Like mirror bright o'er palace wall,
When clouds disperse, it's seen by all."

The Ground Application System's mission extends far beyond lunar exploration. The system provides a full technical workflow covering payload operations and management, data reception, data processing, data management and release, and research and application. Its continually upgraded data receiving and processing capabilities serve as the cornerstone of deep-space exploration, laying a foundation for deep-space missions to Mars, distant asteroids, and beyond.

China's deep-space exploration marches steadily into deeper space, from the Moon to Mars, across the solar system to distant cosmic targets. Amid the boundless cosmos, we wield cutting-edge storage technology as our brush and data as ink, penning new chapters in space exploration.

Li Bai's timeless poetic wonder now meets precise modern detection. Our thousand-year lunar quest is bearing fruit in the form of data-backed answers. And this is only the beginning.