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How data analysis is done on an orbiting satellite

Illustration: D-Orbit ION satellite in orbit
An artist’s conception shows D-Orbit’s ION spacecraft deploying smaller satellites. (D-Orbit Illustration)

For the past 10 months, Amazon Web Services has been running data through its cloud-based software platform on what’s arguably the world’s edgiest edge: a satellite in low Earth orbit.

The experiment, revealed today during AWS’ re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, is aimed at demonstrating how on-orbit processing can help satellite operators manage the torrents of imagery and sensor data generated by their spacecraft.

“Using AWS software to perform real-time data analysis onboard an orbiting satellite, and delivering that analysis directly to decision makers via the cloud, is a definite shift in existing approaches to space data management,” Max Peterson, AWS’ vice president of worldwide public sector, said today in a blog posting. “It also helps push the boundaries of what we believe is possible for satellite operations.”

AWS’ experiment was done in partnership with D-Orbit, an Italian-based company that focuses on space logistics and transportation; and with Unibap, a Swedish company that develops AI-enabled automation solutions for space-based as well as terrestrial applications.

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Microsoft and Lockheed Martin team up on defense tech

Visualization of global connectivity for defense assets
Future military communications may rely on secure cloud computing services. (Lockheed Martin Illustration)

Lockheed Martin and Microsoft say they’re deepening their strategic relationship to help power the next generation of computing and communications technology for the Department of Defense.

Cloud-based services play a key role in that relationship. Under the terms of an agreement announced this week, Lockheed Martin will become the first non-governmental entity to operate independently inside the Microsoft Azure Government Secret cloud.

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Axiom Space joins effort to put the cloud in orbit

Illustration: Axiom Station taking shape in orbit
An artist’s conception shows Axiom Station taking shape in orbit. (Axiom Space Illustration)

When Houston-based Axiom Space starts putting together its commercial space station, some out-of-this-world infrastructure for cloud computing could be close behind — and Microsoft could help make it happen.

That vision of “infrastructure as a service” in low Earth orbit, or LEO, is what’s behind a strategic collaboration agreement involving Axiom Space, Microsoft Azure Space and a Virginia-based venture called LEOcloud. The deal sets the stage for developing and delivering space-based cloud services from commercial assets.

“It’s been an amazing ride to bring all this to this level of reality,” LEOcloud founder Dennis Gatens told me.

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Microsoft and Amazon join Pentagon networking effort

Microsoft illustration: Earth with satellites in orbit
The Pentagon is working with commercial ventures to upgrade space-based networks. (Microsoft Illustration)

Microsoft Azure Space, Amazon Web Services and Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite network are now among the Pentagon’s partners in a campaign to upgrade space- and ground-based communications infrastructure for national security purposes.

The Defense Innovation Unit has awarded contracts to those three Seattle-area business units — plus SpiderOak Mission Systems, a space cybersecurity venture based in Washington, D.C. — in the second phase of the Hybrid Space Architecture project. They join four awardees from the first phase: Aalyria, Anduril, Atlas and Enveil.

“Hybrid Space Architecture ventures into an experimental communications vision that connects users from around the globe using modern and future communications,” Steve Butow, director of DIU’s space portfolio, said today in a news release. “The additional four awards from this solicitation provide new capabilities while seamlessly integrating into this dynamic and innovative collective of information and networking infrastructure that will provide resilient communications, and future technologies access, worldwide and beyond.”

The focus of the Phase I effort was to create a “Hybrid Gateway Satellite” to prove out next-generation networking technologies. Phase II is aimed at expanding the operational network to link ground-based cloud and internet services with commercial satellite constellations to facilitate secure communications via a hybrid public-private network.

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Microsoft and SpaceX ramp up satellite cloud access

Starlink satellite antenna
A SpaceX Starlink satellite antenna is connected to Microsoft’s Azure Stack Edge device. (Microsoft Photo)

With SpaceX’s help, Microsoft is taking the next step toward merging cloud computing with available-anywhere satellite connectivity.

Today Microsoft announced the start of a private preview for Azure Orbital Cloud Access, which lets users link up with the cloud in a single hop from virtually anywhere via SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation.

For now, the preview is limited to Microsoft Azure’s government customers. But Jason Zander, executive vice president of Microsoft strategic missions and technologies, said “we are currently working toward general availability and commercial expansion.”

“That timeline will be determined by the evolution of our work with our private preview customers and customer feedback,” Zander told GeekWire in an emailed response to questions.

Today’s announcement, timed to coincide with the World Satellite Business Week conference in Paris, comes nearly two years after Microsoft announced that it was teaming up with SpaceX on satellite cloud access.

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Microsoft strengthens ties with final frontier pioneers

Graphic showing satellites and Earth
Azure Space’s partners make use of space-based as well as ground-based assets. (Microsoft Graphic)

Microsoft doesn’t build rockets. It doesn’t build satellites, and it doesn’t have a launch pad. So what does Microsoft’s Azure Space business unit do?

“Azure Space is about bringing cloud computing and space technologies together with a partner ecosystem,” Stephen Kitay, senior director of Microsoft Azure Space, told me.

From the beginning, partnerships have been “a foundational part of our approach to space,” Kitay said. So, two years after launching its space-centric cloud computing service, Microsoft is taking a new step to deepen those partnerships by establishing the Azure Space Partner Community.

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Old satellites could get a new lease on life via the cloud

Illustration: NOAA-18 satellite in orbit
An artist’s rendition shows the NOAA-18 satellite in orbit. (NOAA Illustration)

What do you do with an aging weather satellite? If you’re the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, you turn to Microsoft Azure and a Seattle-area startup called Xplore to find out if there’s a cheaper way to keep it going.

After a yearlong demonstration project, the three partners determined that there is a way, thanks to cloud computing and cloud-based mission control software.

“Our work with NOAA and Xplore is driving innovation to virtualize satellite ground station operations in the cloud,” Stephen Kitay, senior director of Microsoft Azure Space, told me. “And this is empowering agencies to tap into the newest commercial technologies and unlock new levels of resiliency and global capacity for critical mission operations.”

The demonstration — conducted under the terms of a cooperative research and development agreement, or CRADA for short — showed that cloud-based services could provide satellite mission management for one of NOAA’s legacy satellites, NOAA-18, in a way that met NOAA’s specifications.

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Another record for calculating pi: 100 trillion digits!

Illustration: Pi on computer, and pie on table
Calculating 100 trillion digits of pi is a feat worth celebrating with a pie. (Google Graphic / The Keyword)

Three years after Seattle software developer Emma Haruka Iwao and her teammates at Google set the world record for calculating pi precisely, they’ve done it again. Thanks to Iwao and Google Cloud, we now know what pi equals to an incredible precision of 100 trillion digits.

Why pi?

Mathematicians have been working out the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter for millennia, going back at least as far as the Babylonians (who figured it at 3.125). It’s important for scientists and engineers to know the irrational number’s value with a high degree of precision, but beyond a certain point, it’s really all about showing how well an algorithm or a computer network can handle more practical problems.

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How using the cloud can rev up the search for asteroids

Asteroid orbital tracks
This visualization shows trajectories for scores of newly identified asteroids. (B612 Asteroid Institute / UW Dirac Institute / OpenSpace Project)

Astronomers have used a cloud-based technique pioneered at the University of Washington to identify and track asteroids in bunches of a hundred or more. Their achievement could dramatically accelerate the quest to find potentially threatening space rocks.

The technique makes use of an open-source analysis platform known as Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping, or ADAM; plus a recently developed algorithm called Tracklet-less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery, or THOR. The THOR algorithm was created by Joachim Moeyens, an Asteroid Institute Fellow at UW; and Mario Juric, director of UW’s DiRAC Institute.

Teaming up ADAM and THOR may sound like a cross between a Bible story and a Marvel comic, but this dynamic duo’s superpower is strictly scientific: When ADAM runs the THOR algorithm, the software can determine the orbits of asteroids, even previously unidentified asteroids, by sifting through any large database of astronomical observations.

ADAM has been a long-term project for the Asteroid Institute, a program of the California-based B612 Foundation.

“Discovering and tracking asteroids is crucial to understanding our solar system, enabling development of space, and protecting our planet from asteroid impacts,” former NASA astronaut Ed Lu, the Asteroid Institute’s executive director, said today in a news release. “With THOR running on ADAM, any telescope with an archive can now become an asteroid search telescope.”

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Space startups get a cloud-based boost from Amazon

Nyx capsule re-entry
Artwork shows the Nyx spacecraft during atmospheric re-entry. (Illustration via The Exploration Company)

For the 10 startups participating this year in Amazon Web Services’ Space Accelerator program, the sky is not the limit.

One company is building the next generation of ultra-high-resolution satellites for Earth observation. Another startup is developing electric propulsion systems for spacecraft and satellites in low Earth orbit. And yet another venture is working on a new type of space capsule that could someday carry cargo and crew to the moon.

“This year’s finalists brought forward pioneering ideas that will draw valuable insights from the depths of the ocean floor to the surface of the moon, and nearly everything in between,” Clint Crosier, director of AWS for Aerospace and Satellite Solutions, said today in a blog post.

Today’s announcement about the Class of 2022 follows up on last year’s inaugural Space Accelerator program. Hundreds of startups applied to take part in the program’s second year, and AWS worked with the AlchemistX accelerator management program to select these 10 finalists.

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