Presentation to the
Rose City Astronomers
Monday August 20th, 730pm
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry Planetarium
Server-Sky: Solar powered server and communication arrays in Earth orbit
Server sky is a proposal to build large dispersed arrays of 3 gram paper-thin solar-powered computer satellites and launch them into 6400km earth orbit. Arrays act as large parallel computers, as well as sparse phased array antennas, transmitting thousands of communication beams simultaneously to ground receivers and other arrays in space.
Thinsat arrays use unlimited space solar power, and operate outside the biosphere. The environmental impact of power generation and heat disposal is tiny. Earth can return to what it is good at – green and growing things – while space can be filled with gray and computing things.
Besides the presentation of the overall system, we will discuss the astronomical and ecological consequences of very large solar collectors in orbit, and how Server Sky will minimize or eliminate them.
Keith Lofstrom (http://www.keithl.com/) is a mixed-signal integrated circuit designer in Beaverton, Oregon. He is CEO of SiidTech, which licenses silicon identification technology. He is active in the open source community, and has a special interest in low power, high efficiency computing.
Keith has written for Kluwer Press, various IEEE journals, SysAdmin magazine, Liberty magazine, aerospace journals, and Analog.