In the wake of the rapid deployment of large-scale low-Earth orbit satellite constellations, exploiting the full computing potential of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) devices in these environments has become a pressing issue. However, understanding this problem is far from straightforward due to the inherent differences between the terrestrial infrastructure and the satellite platform in space. In this paper, we take an important step towards closing this knowledge gap by presenting the first measurement study on the thermal control, power management, and performance of COTS devices on satellites. Our measurements reveal that the satellite platform and COTS devices significantly interplay in terms of the temperature and energy consumption, forming the main constraints on satellite computing. Further, we analyze the critical factors that shape the characteristics of onboard COTS computing devices. We provide guidelines for future research on optimizing the use of such devices for computing purposes. Finally, we plan to release our datasets to facilitate the future study.

翻译：随着大规模低地球轨道卫星星座的快速部署，如何充分发挥商用现成（COTS）设备在这些环境中的计算潜力已成为一个紧迫问题。然而，由于地面基础设施与太空卫星平台之间存在固有差异，理解这一问题远非易事。本文通过首次对卫星上COTS设备的热控制、电源管理及性能进行测量研究，在弥合这一认知差距方面迈出了重要一步。我们的测量结果表明，卫星平台与COTS设备在温度和能耗方面存在显著交互作用，构成了卫星计算的主要约束条件。此外，我们分析了影响星载COTS计算设备特性的关键因素，并为优化这些设备在计算场景中的应用提供了未来研究指南。最后，我们计划公开相关数据集以促进后续研究。