RuVDS and Orbital Express signed an agreement to jointly conduct an experiment to launch and operate a data center in orbit on April 12. This was reported to Vedomosti by the companies. The partners estimate the development, testing and preparation for the launch of the satellite on the CubeSat platform at 10-15 million rubles.
RuVDS provides large companies with server storage and data processing services, Orbital Express, a Skolkovo resident, is developing a system for launching satellites and payloads into space. By their example, the initiators of the project seek to show that it is possible to adapt the operation of the hardware complex and software to work in the limited space conditions, the companies explain. Earlier, as an experiment, the RuVDS server had already been launched into the stratosphere, putting the data center into orbit is a chance to become pioneers in this area and gain tremendous experience, the company representatives believe.
The data center will receive and initially process information from other spacecraft, which will filter out (and not transmit to Earth) such data as low-quality images from space. As conceived by the authors of the project, such a scheme of work optimizes the costs of participants in space activities.
The launch of the server satellite is scheduled for 2022 on the Soyuz carrier at the tariff of Glavkosmos Launch Services (part of Roscosmos State Corporation) – $ 15,000 per 1 kg – into low-earth orbit.
The experimental satellite will weigh about 5 kg, says Nikita Tsaplin, managing partner and founder of RuVDS: “The server weight is 300 g, plus the weight of the satellite itself, the rest is service systems, construction and other payload. This experience is primarily for the development of software and algorithms. “
“We are striving to expand the space market and create new opportunities for space applications,” Nikita Partsevsky, CEO of Orbital Express, told Vedomosti. “A server in space is a great opportunity to determine if such systems are in demand.”
RuVDS will be engaged in the preparation of the electronic component base of the space server and its programming, Orbital Express will take over the integration into the spacecraft, preparation for launch and flight tests in orbit.
The ideologists of the project refer to the advantages of the orbital data center, among other things, the security of such information storage. In the future, banks, data storage services or blockchain infrastructure operators may become users of such centers, they argue.
“Space is not the best place to place a data center, because, firstly, a data center is a lot of energy consumption and rather complicated thermal regulation,” explains Andrey Ionin, chief analyst of the Digital Transport and Logistics Association. “There is no free energy in space, and from the point of view of thermal regulation, its work is a very difficult task, because the object will fall into the shadow, then the sun, and the temperature from this changes by hundreds of degrees.”
The expert also noted that microelectronics reacts very painfully to radiation, and there is much more of it in space than on Earth, even in low orbit. “In addition, for a data center, a delay in the transmission of information is critical. If it arrives with a delay of a second, this server will lose functionality to the terrestrial one, ”sums up Ionin.
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