IT Pro Forum October Meeting: Server Sky, Keith Lofstrom October 20, 2009

The EPA predicts US data center power consumption in 2011 will be 120
billion kilowatt hours, or 3% of total US power consumption, doubling
every 5 years thereafter. Our work as programmers and technologists
will continue this exponential growth. This will have huge
environmental, social, and economic consequences unless we find
alternative ways to power the digital economy.

Server sky is a proposal to build large dispersed arrays of 7 gram
paper-thin solar-powered computer satellites and launch them into
6400km earth orbit. A server-sat is a 100 micron thick, 6 inch solar
cell, with processor memory, and radio chips around the edges.
Server-sats use light pressure for thrust and electrochromic shutters
for steering. Thousands of server-sats position themselves in three
dimensional arrays, about 100 meters on a side. An array acts as a
large phased array antenna, permitting it to transmit thousands of
communication beams simultaneously to ground receivers and other
arrays in space.

A server-sat displaces 25 watts of ground-based electrical generation,
cooling, and power conversion. A server-sat does not need the racks,
cabling, power converters, land, buildings, and other infrastructure
needed to build a ground-based server farm. These savings alone may
pay for launch. Server-sat arrays use unlimited space solar power,
and operate outside the biosphere. The environmental impact of power
generation and heat disposal is close to zero. In time, new launch
techniques, and solar cells made from lunar rock, can further reduce
the environmental and economic costs of manufacturing and launch.

Earth can return to what it is good at – green and growing things –
while space can be filled with gray and computing things.

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