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Arctic data center to be airdropped onto drifting ice floe

The data center is designed to work in extreme conditions, its form factor assumes reliability and mobility, which allows the delivery to the ice floe by dropping it from an aircraft

MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/. An Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft will drop the server equipment, due to be deployed on a drifting ice floe in the Arctic, from a height of more than 10,000 meters, Russia's RuVDS Company told TASS.

"The server equipment, which is planned to be deployed on a drifting ice floe in the Arctic, will be airdropped from an IL-76 aircraft," the company said. "This aircraft will be used also to make the world's first stratospheric jump onto the North Pole from a height of more than 10,000 meters," RuVDS said.

The data center is designed to work in extreme conditions, its form factor assumes reliability and mobility, which allows the delivery to the ice floe by dropping it from an aircraft. The jump is scheduled for April 2 - 6. "The record will be set by Russia's Hero Russia, cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, Instructor Pilot Alexander Lynnik and Director of Stratonavtika LLC Denis Efremov. The data center is designed to work in extreme conditions," the company said.

Nikita Tsaplin, the company's CEO, stressed that one of the goals of the Arctic project is to test equipment in extreme conditions. "The airdrop is the best option to test the entire range of possible loads. Of course, we are happy our equipment in fact will land together with people making a record jump from the stratosphere onto the North Pole, since the atmosphere is above the pole is thinner and the stratosphere begins from 10 km already. Thus, both events will attract additional attention to the Arctic, highlighting its importance and prospects," he said.

In March, the project participants passed tests in thermic and pressure chambers and performed a test jump from 6,000 meters. The used equipment confirmed its operability.

The compact data center will be launched at the Barneo ice camp, located in the immediate vicinity of the North Pole. At the camp the server equipment will transmit telemetry via the RUVDS satellite. The hosting provider as well as experts of the Stratonavtika Company, the project's technical partner, will monitor the transmitted data's accuracy and quality.