T

he rapid expansion of low

Earth orbit satellite
FUTURE OF THE CLOUD constellations — and the

How Azure Orbital and the Cloud

ability now for ground-based cloud
computing centers to securely manage
data to and from those satellites — has

Are Expanding Our Worldview

brought the industrialization of space
to a historic inflection point.

2023 was a watershed year for

the space industry. A record 2,897
satellites were launched into orbit
Microsoft is helping ‘empower every organization around the Earth by more than 50
to benefit from spaceborne connectivity and data’ countries last year, according to
figures from Jonathan McDowell, an
by bridging space and cloud technologies. astronomer and astrophysicist known
for documenting space activity.

A Scoop News Group Report Tellingly, among 223 orbital launch

attempts last year (212 of which
succeeded), 132 were carried out by
commercial companies for commercial
customers; another 78 were carried
out directly by governments, not
including contracted launches. Those
numbers and forecasts for an increase
in the number of launches in 2024
illustrate space’s growing commercial
and military importance.

The X factor
Much of that activity has been
overshadowed by the outsized
presence of SpaceX and its disruptive
model for moving payloads into space.
Since May 2019, SpaceX has placed
more than 5,350 Starlink satellites into
low Earth orbit (LEO), with plans to put
thousands more. SpaceX’s approach
to reusing spacecraft and the
shrinking sizes of modern, ever-more-
capable satellites has lowered
 payload launch costs from $62,000/kg during
the Space Shuttle era to as little as $100/kg
promised aboard SpaceX’s Starship.

All of that is contributing to a supernova

of new space-based communications and
Earth-observation sensor capabilities, says
Stephen Kitay, a former Pentagon deputy
assistant secretary for space policy, who now
serves as senior director of Azure Space at
Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft, Kitay
was a key player in establishing the U.S.
Space Force.

“A huge transformation is happening in space

— and the technology that was never there
before — effectively extending the internet
and edge computing into space,” Kitay said.

Bringing cloud and space together

However, what’s been missing until recently Azure Orbital Ground Station (Courtesy of Microsoft)
is a reliable and secure way to manage and

“
transmit the explosive growth of satellite
generation of software platforms to manage
data being collected in space and the means
Once you start bringing space the devices, applications, and data on board
to automate and manage satellite activities
all of them.
more efficiently. together with cloud computing on
the ground, it opens up new levels “Once you start bringing space together with
While satellites have been successfully
sending signals to Earth for decades,
of resiliency, new levels to derive cloud computing on the ground, it opens up new
levels of resiliency, new levels to derive insights
adjusting to this new scale of satellite data insights, and new ways to drive
from massive amounts of data, and ultimately,
has posed substantial technical challenges. much lower latency solutions.” new ways to drive much lower latency solutions,”
Because of the distances signals must travel,
Kitay said. And that’s what’s changed, he says.
and the varying conditions of space, satellite
- Stephen Kitay,
data transmission has historically suffered
Microsoft Senior Director, The rise of hybrid space architecture
from limited bandwidth capacity, slow Azure Space
speeds, and recurring latency. Since the launch of Azure Space in 2020,
Microsoft has introduced several critical
The enormous push to build low Earth orbit components aimed at “bringing cloud and
constellations — which hover around 1,200 challenges. But the other handicap has been space technologies together to foster a partner
miles above the Earth compared to 22,200 the need for secure, scalable cloud computing ecosystem” under the banner of Azure Orbital,
miles for satellites in fixed geostationary centers strategically located around the globe to according to Kitay.
Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review from “Your Company Needs
Earth orbits — has reduced many of those stay connected to all those satellites — and a new
a Space Strategy. Now.” Copyright © 2022 by Harvard Business Publishing;
all rights reserved.

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 That includes: Microsoft Azure brings an added advantage
by having well-established cloud facilities

“
• Azure Orbital Ground Station – think worldwide that meet commercial, government,
ground station as a service, designed to give secret and top-secret security requirements.
satellite operators such as True Anomaly, The fusion of different kinds of
Muon Space, Loft Orbital, and government “Removing the barriers to seamless and secure
observations across the network is also
customers the ability to deliver space data connectivity from ground to orbit creates entirely
going to be important. Once this happens, new opportunities for federal government
with near-zero latency to Microsoft’s global
space truly becomes something that customers, including those operating in classified
network of Microsoft and partner ground
stations, including KSAT and Viasat, with
every industry must use.” environments,” said Zach Kramer, vice president
“single-click” remote accessibility. - Theresa Condor, of the Mission Engineering unit at Microsoft.
COO, Spire Global “Defense and civilian agencies can leverage this
• Azure Orbital Cloud Access – enables a ubiquitous connectivity to develop and deploy
seamless cloud experience anywhere new applications, gather and transmit data at
on the planet by bringing the power of the speed of relevance, and gain an information
Microsoft Cloud together with low latency/ advantage to serve the American people.”
high capacity satellite communications

“
such as SpaceX, Starlink, and SES O3B
mPower, expanding customers’ resilient architecture,” reflecting broader efforts by the various challenges to the satellite operators and
connectivity across fiber, 5G cellular, and Department of Defense, the Space Development their customers because access to ground stations Removing the barriers to seamless
satellite networks. Agency, and industry to take governmental, is limited by geographic footprint, making it difficult
commercial, and allied space capabilities and
and secure connectivity from
and expensive to achieve widespread coverage
bring them together. with traditional methods.” ground to orbit creates entirely new
• Microsoft Planetary Computer – a massive
multi-petabyte catalog of global open opportunities for federal government
geospatial data with intuitive APIs aimed Shifting investment strategies Azure Orbital Ground Station aims to address customers, including those operating
at helping researchers, scientists, students, The benefits of those efforts are obvious. Though these challenges through a common data plane
and standard API that provides access to the
in classified environments.”
and organizations worldwide gain valuable the U.S. government will still need to develop its own
insights from Earth observation data. satellites for specific national security and other global network of Microsoft and partner antennas
such as KSAT or Viasat Real-Time Earth antennas - Zach Kramer,
reasons, it is no longer the only source of innovation Microsoft Vice President,
Microsoft is also looking to the next generation to meet their needs — nor must it bear the entire that include high throughput Ka-band downlink Mission Engineering
of space needs by driving AI in space, burden of the costs of developing its space capability, he explained. “That will allow customers
collaborating with Loft Orbital, Ball Aerospace, operations. Leveraging commercial capabilities to stream multi-gigabit-per-second downlinks
and Thales Alenia Space to enable satellite allows government entities to take advantage of to Azure Orbital Ground Stations, providing the
operators, government agencies, and academic innovation from the rapid advances in the private foundation for operators to harness space data Reimagining the power of space imagery
organizations to leverage the power of AI at sector. Additionally, it provides greater resilience faster, easier and more securely.” One example of how federal agencies can
the Azure Orbital edge. Developers can write through the more extensive architecture of space capitalize on new space capabilities can be seen
applications in the cloud, and then deploy, and ground systems. At the same time, Microsoft innovation is extending
with the emergence of synthetic aperture radar.
operate, and monitor them while on-orbit with above the Earth by “bringing our code and our
SAR uses energy emitted at various wavelengths
satellite edge compute. However, getting satellites into space only addresses software into space, by empowering developers to
that see through clouds, the darkness of night,
part of the problem, says Kitay. “Delivering data build applications on the ground in the cloud, and
and even layers of soil, augmenting electro-
These products are part of what Kitay described to Earth requires a secure, robust ground network then seamlessly deploy them on board spacecraft,”
optical and infrared sensors in new and
as the “emerging world of hybrid space with low latency and high throughput. That presents he said.
powerful ways. For instance, the ability to adjust

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 the wavelength and frequencies of SAR standardized and cloud-optimized manner. decision-making,” she added. “The fusion
instruments allows operators to capture “Collaborating with Microsoft Azure, we of different kinds of observations across the
views ranging from 200 km to as little as developed an AI system that maps ground- network is also going to be important. Once this
0.5 meters, providing a new generation mounted solar arrays using up-to-date satellite happens, space truly becomes something that
of geospatial mapping and visualization data, enabling us to regularly track one of every industry must use.”
capabilities. the most rapid drivers of land use change in
the watershed,” said Joel Dunn, CEO of At the same time, Kitay observes, “Space
Defense and intelligence agencies are Chesapeake Conservancy, in a recent is increasingly becoming a contested
starting to take advantage of these Geospatial World interview. environment as nation-states compete to control
capabilities, along with AI tools, to gain new this latest frontier.”
tactical advantages in real-time, global Harnessing space to tackle Earth’s
intelligence gathering. challenges As part of its efforts to support federal
space customers and the broader partner
However, these same capabilities offer a These and other uses of space-based data ecosystem, Microsoft recently renewed an
new era of possibilities for federal agencies are putting government and industry on a initiative with the U.S. Space Force’s Space
to deliver enhanced services to the public, new trajectory for innovation to tackle global Systems Command to develop the Integrated,
such as: concerns. Still, it will require a joint effort, say Immersive, Intelligent Environment (I3E) to train
space industry experts. and prepare Guardians for current and future
• The U.S. Forest Service – to better
space-based scenarios.
monitor and study the impact of fast- “LEO is now part of mainstream satellite services,”
moving wildfires. says Cyril Dujardin, general manager at Eutelsat, The project captures what the “future of cloud”
• The Environmental Protection a leading satellite services operator, in a recent looks like, he said, by leveraging a combination
Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard – to Via Satellite interview. “My conviction is that in of “mixed reality experiences, visualizations,
track and respond more effectively to oil 2024, constellations will surprise everyone with analysis and multi-user environments” that can
spills or other environmental disasters. the diversity of uses and markets where they will be securely accessed anywhere in the world.
become the indispensable connectivity solution.”
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture –
to assist farmers with soil and natural And increasingly, he said, the future of the
“Governments don’t need to own and build cloud will be interconnected with advancing
resource conversation strategies.
the tech, but they do need to be part of the capabilities from space.
• The National Oceanic and customer base,” said Theresa Condor, COO of
Atmospheric Agency and FEMA – Spire Global, a leading provider of space-based Learn more how Microsoft Azure and Azure
to better understand the impact of data, analytics, and space services. “Security, Orbital are expanding the world’s view.
extreme weather on urban and rural disaster response, and climate monitoring are
communities. all areas where [Earth observation] is incredibly
This report was produced by Scoop News Group for
important and where the pure commercial
FedScoop and underwritten by Microsoft.
Non-profits, like the Chesapeake customer base doesn’t exist in a meaningful
Conservancy, are already seeing the enough way to maintain and deploy all of the
benefits of working with Azure Orbital to infrastructure,” she said.
protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The
Planetary Computer provides the foundation “What really becomes game-changing is when
for organizations such as Chesapeake you have laser inter-satellite links for a connected
Conservancy to access and get the benefits network in space with high-performance
of massive amounts of geospatial data in a computing that allows AI on-orbit and edge

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