Space industry veteran leads Lonestar’s lunar mission

When St. Petersburg engineer James Burns-Montante discovered that Will Hawkins, chief data officer of local tech firm Lonestar Data Holdings, purchased Montante’s Crescent Lake childhood home, he never imagined the bridged connection would lead to him becoming the lead engineer behind Lonestar’s mission to the Moon.

“I got to step inside my childhood home for the first time since 1994,” Burns-Montante said, recalling how conversations evolved into the duo finding common ground in sharing their passions about the space sector.

“It was wild; he and I were using the same type of software technology. He wanted to hire me part-time, but my company had very strict non-compete agreements. He said, ‘Let’s see what we can do to get you a full-time position.'”

Over the next several months, Burns-Montante continued to engage with Hawkins, who arranged and in-person introduction to CEO Chris Stott. 

St. Petersburg-based Lonestar Data Holdings Inc. is a data analytics startup that’s planning to build a network of data centers on the Moon.

Earlier this month, Lonestar, headquartered in the Maritime and Defense Technology Hub, officially announced Burns-Montante, who started working at Lonestar late last year, now has the title of Director of Flight Software. He will be leading the software functions for Lonestar to establish data centers on the lunar surface, expanding data storage opportunities for the government and private ventures. 

“Jim is a superb addition to our team. His experience is beyond compare and we are lucky to have him as we continue to build our presence here in Florida,” Stott said in a prepared statement. 

Burns-Montante will be the boots on the ground as Lonestar tests its proof-of-concept data center on the Moon inside a robotic lander, as part of space exploration company Intuitive Machines’ upcoming lunar missions.

The company previously signed a contract with SpaceX to launch several lunar lander missions with a Falcon 9 rocket.

Intuitive Machines’ first mission will take place in June.  

Lonestar’s conceptual data center on the moon. Image: Lonestar Data Holdings.

The second mission, IM-2, is scheduled for October or November. Through the second mission, Lonestar plans to have a standalone physical data center on the Moon as a prototype that can store 8 terabytes of data. 

“Many people don’t understand that space is a really harsh environment. What you don’t always hear about it is the radiation. It can cause circuits to act crazy. One of the things we are doing is designing a circuit board that can withstand it,” he said, describing how it can cause a reboot in the system. “We are trying to store people’s data. We can’t have it corrupted or lost, and we need provide the data fairly quickly. You have to design for low power and yet high capability. Our supplier has done that by working with low-power circuits and circuit boards. We aren’t trying to compete with Google or Amazon – we are trying to provide a service they do not offer. 

“We have to make sure the components in the data centers are correctly operating so we can operate it remotely and restore data,” he said, stating Stott is taking measures to ensure the data stored cannot be accessed or hacked by unauthorized users. 

Burns-Montante started his career in real-time computer-vision chip design for customers, including DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and the U.S. Army. This led him into systems engineering for spacecraft mission computers and satellite payloads for a variety of customers.

At Clearwater-based Honeywell Aerospace and Draper Laboratory, a nonprofit engineering innovation company that works with Honeywell, Montante helped provide deployment and support for certain projects. According to Burns-Montante’s biography, he has nearly 20 years of experience in the field.

The announcement of Burns-Montante’s new role comes after Lonestar, founded in 2018, raised more than $5 million through a seed round led by Texas-based Scout Ventures.