The solar collectors should always be on the sun-side of the bird so effective 
at creating shade as well.

 

From: Hesham ElBakoury <[email protected]> 
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2023 7:10 AM
To: Daniel Schien <[email protected]>
Cc: Vint Cerf <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Michael 
Richardson <[email protected]>; starlink <[email protected]>; 
[email protected]
Subject: Re: [E-impact] [Starlink] DataCenters in Space (was Re: fiber IXPs in 
space)

 

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] 
<mailto:[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
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  _____  

From: E-impact <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > 
on behalf of Vint Cerf <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2023 2:16:38 AM
To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>  <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Cc: Michael Richardson <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >; 
starlink <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >; [email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]>  <[email protected] <mailto:[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] <mailto:[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] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of Michael 
Richardson via Starlink
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2023 7:35 PM
To: starlink <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >; [email protected] 
<mailto:[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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