Wow … 5.1 square kilometer of solar panels.
It is going to be really good at catching micrometeorites and small space 
debris.
A few small nicks won’t matter. Should we care?

The James Webb already caught a few in it’s mirror. So far it wasn’t serious.

Gene
----------------------------------------------
Eugene Chang
IEEE Communications Society & Signal Processing Society,
    Hawaii Chapter Chair
IEEE Hawaii Section, Industry Engagement Coordinator
IEEE Senior Life Member
[email protected]
m 781-799-0233 (in Honolulu)



> On Apr 19, 2023, at 11:31 PM, Chris Adams via Starlink 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Hi folks,
> 
> Is there a link to the underlying assumptions in for this "data centres in 
> space” story or the report?
> 
> The press release mentioned solar powerplants generating several hundred 
> megawatts. That would require a massive amount of solar!
> 
> For context, this list here shows the largest solar plants in the US, as of 
> June 2021:
> 
> https://list.solar/plants/largest-plants/solar-plants-usa/ 
> <https://list.solar/plants/largest-plants/solar-plants-usa/>
> 
> Even the smallest one, kicking out 200 Megawatts has a surface areas of 5.1 
> square kilometers, and it only goes upward from there.
> 
> For this to be plausible, you’d need panels to be orders of magnitude more 
> efficient than they are on land when in space, even before you think about 
> how heavy it would be get multiple square kilometres of solar panel into 
> orbit.
> 
> C
> 
> 
> 
> Chris Adams
> 
> Executive Director
> 
> w: thegreenwebfoundation.org
> e: [email protected]
> t: @mrchrisadams
> 
> German Office
> Naunynstrasse 40
> 10999 Berlin
> Germany
> 
> See our contact page for more details
> https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/contact/ 
> <https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/contact/>
> 
> Book a short call with me to discuss something.
> https://cal.com/mrchrisadams <https://cal.com/mrchrisadams>
> Chris Adams
> 
> Executive Director
> 
> w: thegreenwebfoundation.org
> e: [email protected]
> t: @mrchrisadams
> 
> German Office
> Naunynstrasse 40
> 10999 Berlin
> Germany
> 
> See our contact page for more details
> https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/contact/ 
> <https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/contact/>
> 
> Book a short call with me to discuss something.
> https://cal.com/mrchrisadams <https://cal.com/mrchrisadams>
> 
> 
>> On 20. Apr 2023, at 07:43, 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 <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 
>> <https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/[email protected]/bookings/>
>> 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] <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
>>  
>> <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
>>  
>> <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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>> <https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink>
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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>> 
>> --
>> Please send any postal/overnight deliveries to:
>> Vint Cerf
>> Google, LLC
>> 1900 Reston Metro Plaza, 16th Floor
>> Reston, VA 20190
>> +1 (571) 213 1346
>> 
>> 
>> until further notice
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
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