Not Your Father’s Data Center Podcast: Data Centers in Space Pt. 2

Rick Ward, CTO, and Founder of Orbits Edge, described how space is becoming increasingly accessible to laypeople. “We’re getting more and more to the place where I can see myself there. And that is a big deal. You don’t have a space-bearing civilization when the only people who go up there are less numerous than Olympic gold medalists.”

Ward and Raymond Hawkins, Chief Revenue Officer of Compass Data Centers, discussed this increasing accessibility in the context of data on Part Two of “Data Centers in Space” on Not Your Father’s Data Center Podcast.

Orbits Edge uses high-power compute in space before sending data to Earth. Mass amounts of data are captured, but there is a bottleneck in transportation. Ward said, “Image capture is haystack generation, compute is needle finding,” said Ward. If you can only transport a fraction of the data haystack, it needs to be the high-quality “needles.”

Data is shipped to countries through bands that have varying reliabilities and throughputs. A low-orbit satellite may conduct with a ground station for a certain distance, then have a fuzzy connection for another distance, and finally have no connectivity for several kilometers until it reaches the next ground station. High, dry locations are best for ground station connectivity. “What it comes down to is intermittent connectivity of variable throughputs of various windows of connectivity,” said Ward.

Data is then transported from the ground station to a data center. Some ground stations have antennas to reduce the fiber run distance.

Orbits Edge satellites range from the size of a dorm mini-fridge to the size of a regular fridge and weigh about 200 kilos. Despite the small size, Ward predicted that satellite data will play an increasingly heavy role in space and research stations, crystallography, space metallurgy, and ceramics.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

Practical tips for teachers
Get Tech Ready for Back to School: Practical Tips for Teachers
September 11, 2024

As classrooms across the country prepare for the new school year, integrating technology has become a key component of educational strategies. The global value of the EdTech sector is expected to reach $132.4 billion by the year 2032. Amid this increasing emphasis on digital tools in K-12 education, teachers must ensure their tech tools…

Read More
Jabra and Microsoft Teams Integration
Jabra and Microsoft Teams Integration: Insights from Josh Blalock and Danny Hayasaka
September 11, 2024

Craig Durr, Chief Analyst and Founder at the Collab Collective, sits down with Josh Blalock, Chief Video Evangelist and Microsoft MVP, Jabra, and Danny Hayasaka, Senior Director of Marketing and Emerging Technologies at Call One, Inc. Learn how Jabra integrates within the Microsoft Teams ecosystem and the latest AI-driven solutions, revolutionizing how we collaborate in…

Read More
Maestro
Maestro All-In-One PMS and Data Plus Collaborate to Provide Seamless End-To-End Integrations for the Famed Francisco Grande Hotel & Golf Resort
September 10, 2024

The historic sports training destinations is now benefitting from improved access to financial management technology and enhanced integrations across all operations departments MARKHAM, Ontario, Sept. 10, 2024 — Maestro PMS, the hotel industry’s leading Web Browser-based cloud and on-premises all-in-one property-management system, has teamed with industry-leading financial management platform Data Plus to elevate the technology offerings…

Read More
AI in Pro AV: Addressing Opportunities, Use Cases, and Concerns w/ Joe Pham of QSC and Q-SYS
September 10, 2024

On this episode of Pro AV Today, we break down the topic du jour in Pro AV: artificial intelligence. Joe Pham, the Chairman & CEO of QSC | Q-SYS, joins Ben Thomas to talk about how AV and AI are coming together and pushing the AV industry forward. Key Topics: Decoding AI in the…

Read More