Hi Hesham,
the problem is not primarily the temperature of space, but the fact that
computers tend to produce heat themselves that needs to be deposed off and
vacuum makes a hell of a thermal isolator... so essentially I think you need to
radiate your heat out as infrared light, no convection possible.
I am with Ulrich on this, the economics of this do not look favorable, except
maybe for a few applications where being closer to the end points (or the
satellites themselves) matter enormously.
Regards
Sebastian
> On Apr 20, 2023, at 13:10, Hesham ElBakoury via Starlink
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> The article about the ASCEND project says:
> "Very low ambient temperatures in space will dramatically reduce the need for
> cooling equipment that consumes enormous amounts of energy. A significant
> part of a data center’s energy use is for cooling equipment, accounting for
> more than 50% in some facilities. Temperatures can be as low as -292°F
> (-180°C) when an orbiting object is in the Earth’s shadow."
>
> Hesham
>
> On Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:44 PM Daniel Schien <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> I assume any object in orbit will be hidden from the sun some of the time.
> So, the machines will require some pretty big battery to go up with them.
>
> I'd like to also know what the launch cost is.
>
> Tom Segert estimates in his LinkedIn post, for a 100kg satellite payload:
>
> "TL:DR ~57 ton CO2e for a typical ESA satellite (including Ariane 6 launch),
> <15t CO2e for a satellite built in a factory and launched with a re-usable
> rocket."
>
> Depending on the type of server that should go up there, this is a fair
> amount of carbon to offset from brighter sunlight.
>
> The article also gets the carbon footprint wrong:
>
> "Data centers are big energy consumers – between 2% and 3% of all global
> consumption – a rate that is doubling every year."
>
> The latest was IEA estimating it to be around 220-320 TWh (out of 30,000) in
> 2021 data and growing between 10-60% over 6 years in total (so let's than 10
> CAGR). But it's certainly not doubling every year. That's just completely
> wrong.
>
>
> Daniel Schien
> Senior Lecturer in Computer Science
> Department of Computer Science | University of Bristol
> Submit software engineering project ideas for 2022
>
> bris.ac.uk/software-engineering
> Watch: https://youtu.be/lU-ZsBDFWDI
>
> Merchant Venturers Building , Woodland Rd Bristol, BS8 1UB
> Book a meeting:
> https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/[email protected]/booki
>
> From: E-impact <[email protected]> on behalf of Vint Cerf
> <[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2023 2:16:38 AM
> To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
> Cc: Michael Richardson <[email protected]>; starlink
> <[email protected]>; [email protected] <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [E-impact] [Starlink] DataCenters in Space (was Re: fiber IXPs
> in space)
>
> O&M will be a bear
> v
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 19, 2023 at 9:13 PM Tom Evslin via Starlink
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think space-based data centers will be the rule rather than the exception.
> Wrote about that a couple of years ago although, as usual, things have not
> happened as quickly as I predicted
> https://blog.tomevslin.com/2021/07/computing-clouds-in-orbit-a-possible-roadmap.html
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Starlink <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Michael
> Richardson via Starlink
> Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2023 7:35 PM
> To: starlink <[email protected]>; [email protected]
> Subject: [Starlink] DataCenters in Space (was Re: fiber IXPs in space)
>
>
> I saw this reported in BIS-Spaceflight.
> (I'm usually a few months behind in reading it) I like the "first objective"!
>
> https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/space/press-release/ascend-thales-alenia-space-lead-european-feasibility-study-data
>
> Cannes, November 14, 2022 – Thales Alenia Space, the joint company between
> Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), has been chosen by the European Commission
> to lead the ASCEND (Advanced Space Cloud for European Net zero emission and
> Data sovereignty) feasibility study for data centers in orbit, as part of
> Europe’s vast Horizon Europe research program.
>
> Digital technology’s expanding environmental footprint is becoming a major
> challenge: the burgeoning need for digitalization means that data centers in
> Europe and around the world are growing at an exponential pace, which in turn
> has a critical energy and environmental impact.
>
> The first objective of this study will be to assess if the carbon emissions
> from the production and launch of these space infrastructures will be
> significantly lower than the emissions generated by ground-based data
> centers, therefore contributing to the achievement of global carbon
> neutrality. The second objective will be to prove that it is possible to
> develop the required launch solution and to ensure the deployment and
> operability of these spaceborne data centers using robotic assistance
> technologies currently being developed in Europe, such as the EROSS IOD
> demonstrator.
>
> This project is expected to demonstrate to which extent space-based data
> centers would limit the energy and environmental impact of their ground
> counterparts, thus allowing major investments within the scope of Europe’s
> Green Deal, possibly justifying the development of a more climate-friendly,
> reusable heavy launch vehicle. Europe could thus regain its leadership in
> space transport and space logistics, as well as the assembly and operations
> of large infrastructures in orbit.
>
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