Tag: Azure Space

A critical priority for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is accelerating the speed at which information is collected, analyzed and delivered to where it is needed to support mission goals. Satellites are increasingly playing an important role in this ability to harness and move data around the world, but limitations in the current government architecture can still present challenges to getting information where it’s needed, when it’s needed. To solve this, the DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has partnered with the U.S. Space Force in developing a Hybrid Space Architecture (HSA), designed to rapidly scale available space resources and bring together the best capabilities across government and commercial industry to establish ubiquitous, resilient connectivity and insights for mission leaders.

Today, DIU announced that Microsoft has been selected to bring our advanced, trusted cloud and innovative Azure Space capabilities, alongside a space partner ecosystem, to serve as a foundation to realize their Hybrid Space Architecture vision.

The HSA is essentially DoD’s effort to build an internet in space and will support the Department’s goal of establishing information advantage for national security. By collaborating with commercial partners, HSA vastly expands its range of satellite and space systems across diverse orbits, ground stations and communication paths to provide “secure, assured and low-latency data communications anywhere on and off Earth.”

The HSA will be built in part upon Microsoft Azure and will leverage key capabilities from our suite of Azure Space solutions, including Azure Orbital Cloud Access and Azure Orbital Ground Station. This will be supported by Microsoft’s private global wide area network, which provides resilient global data transport from ground stations to the appropriate cloud destinations. Combined, these capabilities bring together key functions of the HSA including remote sensing, multi-path communications and cloud computing.

Beyond accelerating the flow of data, a key innovation of the hybrid space architecture is accelerating the speed to insights of that data. Space is one of the largest untapped data lakes (central repositories of data) in the world and mission owners will benefit from making sense of massive volumes of data to better inform decision making, beyond what they have the power to do today. With Azure, the DIU will be able bring the best practices in commercial innovation to the HSA to utilize AI and machine learning to harness data at speed and scale for operational advantage and increased efficiency — at all security classification levels.

Underpinning this effort is our focus on cybersecurity, building on Microsoft’s commitment to advance cybersecurity in space. With a broad view of the threat landscape — informed by 43 trillion threat signals analyzed daily, combined with cutting-edge AI and the human intelligence of our more than 8,500 experts, including threat hunters, forensics investigators, malware engineers and researchers — we see firsthand what organizations are facing and we’re committed to protecting our nation from rapidly evolving cyberthreats. Microsoft deploys these industry leading cybersecurity solutions across all devices, clouds, apps and platforms that are continuously updated with the latest threat intelligence insights to provide advanced, timely defenses. Our goal is to ensure that not only Microsoft, but also our partners, can adhere to the same high security standards, and can meet and exceed the U.S. government’s security requirements while keeping pace with the evolving cyberthreat landscape.

Another key enabler in our approach to HSA is tapping into our extensive Azure Space partner ecosystem. We have developed partnerships with leading space industry companies to support the goals of HSA. Developing relationships with these partners helps the industry and government further establish a standardized approach to connectivity and ensure system interoperability across the platform. We are bringing this wide-ranging connected ecosystem to bear to support the HSA vision.

The Hybrid Space Architecture program is a demonstration of what’s possible when government and industry work closely to tackle the biggest challenges in the universe — crafting a transformational platform to support space-based national security missions. By bringing the latest Azure Space capabilities to this project, establishing consistent standards across industry, and collaborating with numerous industry partners, we’re demonstrating the art of possible to support advanced and secure space-based data connectivity and analytics.

Learn more about how Azure Space is combining the possibilities of space with the power of the cloud.

Tags: AI, Azure, Azure Space, cybersecurity

Since the launch of Azure Space two years ago, we’ve announced partnerships, products, and tools that have focused on how we can bring together the power of the cloud with the possibilities of space.

Today, we are introducing the next wave of product advancements for this mission and announcing specific ways in which we are democratizing space and empowering our partners.

1. Announcing the Azure Orbital Cloud Access Preview
   • A brand-new service that brings the power of the Microsoft Cloud to wherever you need it most.
2. Announcing the General Availability of Azure Orbital Ground Station
   • Since the launch of Azure Space in October 2020, we have talked about Azure Orbital Ground Station. Today, alongside our partner network, including KSAT, we are making this service available to all satellite operators, such as Pixxel, Muon Space, and Loft Orbital.
3. Advancing the digital transformation of satellite communication networks
   • The first demonstration of a fully virtualized iDirect modem.
   • Together with SES we are announcing a new joint satellite communications virtualization program.

The collective impact of these announcements points towards two key outcomes. First, we are dedicated to democratizing the possibilities of space by unlocking connectivity and data with the Microsoft Cloud. Second, we can also help support the digital transformation for our customers and partners in the space industry by using the flexible, scalable compute power in Azure.

Announcing Azure Orbital Cloud Access Preview

Azure Orbital Cloud Access brings connectivity from the cloud wherever businesses and public sector organizations need it the most. Across the space ecosystem, we are seeing a proliferation of low-latency satellite communication networks. This massive new expansion of connectivity across fiber, cellular, and satellite networks demands a new approach to connectivity, one which intelligently prioritizes traffic across these options, and bridges resilient connectivity into a seamless cloud experience.

Today, we are announcing the preview of Azure Orbital Cloud Access. Serving as a step toward the future of integrated 5G and satellite communications, Azure Orbital Cloud Access is a new service that enables low-latency (1-hop) access to the cloud—from anywhere on the planet—making it easier to bring satellite-based communications into your enterprise cloud operation.

Specifically, the preview for Azure Government customers unlocks new scenarios and opportunities in areas with low or no connectivity, or where a failover connectivity option is needed. Azure Orbital Cloud Access delivers prioritized network traffic through SpaceX’s Starlink connectivity and Azure edge devices, providing customers with access to Microsoft cloud services anywhere Starlink operates.

“Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency global connectivity in conjunction with Azure infrastructure will enable users to access fiber-like cloud computing access anywhere, anytime. We’re excited to offer this solution to both the public and the private sector.”—Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer

Additionally, Azure Orbital Cloud Access manages the entire solution for customers, charging on a simple monthly subscription basis and a pay-as-you-go satellite communications consumption model.

The product also natively integrates with SD-WAN technology from Juniper Networks, which enables customers to prioritize connectivity between fiber, cellular, and satellite communications networks.

The Azure Orbital Cloud Access Preview is currently available for Azure Government customers. To sign up, please contact your Microsoft account team.

Connecting First Responders and the National Interagency Fire Center with Azure Orbital Cloud Access

Azure Orbital Cloud Access enables new scenarios for diverse types of customers and situations. For example, we recently worked with the Wildland Fire Information Technology (WFIT) group at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho. This work consisted of conducting a research test to address the challenge of bringing connectivity to wildland firefighters and incident management personnel, who often work in rural locations.

Tens of thousands of wildland fires occur throughout the United States each year. In many cases, these wildfires occur in remote locations with low or no connectivity, making it extremely difficult for firefighters and fire managers to communicate. Connectivity enables personnel to share information and helps ensure a coordinated response to these fires.

In collaboration with Microsoft, the National Interagency Fire Center conducted a test of Azure Orbital Cloud Access capabilities integrated with SpaceX’s Starlink LEO satellite constellation. The goal of this test was to enable wildland firefighters’ connectivity to Microsoft Azure services in remote locations to provide uninterrupted support for firefighting operations and coordination.

This demonstration enabled access to FireNet (a cloud-based application for collaboration and management of wildfires using Microsoft Teams and Sharepoint) and remote access to wildfire data to share key insights to decision-makers in a secure and rapid manner. Through Azure Orbital Cloud Access, we achieved resilient communications and failover capabilities with intelligent prioritized traffic through cellular, fiber, or satellite.

Enabling digital resiliency through 5G and space with Pegatron and the Taiwan Hsinchu Fire Department

Digital resiliency is a key area of focus for Azure Space, and a critical use case for connectivity. As we look ahead at the future of possibilities for combining different pathways for connectivity, we partnered with Pegatron and SES to explore a scenario for natural disasters that brings together the power of 5G and space for the Hsinchu Fire Department.

Using space technology, mobile infrastructure, and Azure’s global footprint, we determined that we could offer alternative pathways for connectivity that exist outside of the reliance on local infrastructure—which is at risk of being damaged in a natural disaster.

“Communications on the front line are critical during natural disasters, but infrastructure is often destroyed, and connections are disrupted. This space-enabled 5G network would give us a much-needed tool allowing our first responders to effectively and efficiently focus on our fight to save lives and property.”—Director General Shi-Kung Lee, Hsinchu City Fire Department, Taiwan

In partnership with Pegatron, an emergency response vehicle was built that could be rapidly deployed to disaster zones. Microsoft’s 5G core, Microsoft Teams, Pegatron’s 5G O-RAN base station, and SES’s MEO satellite communication constellation were integrated to create high-bandwidth, low-latency communication for first responders across command sites using Azure, strengthening the Hsinchu Fire Department’s response.

Announcing the General Availability of Azure Orbital Ground Station

Today, we are announcing the general availability of Azure Orbital Ground Station—our fully managed ground station as a service offering which is now available to all customers. Get started today.

The mission of Azure Orbital Ground Station is to work together with our partner ecosystem to enable satellite operators to focus on their satellites and operate from the cloud more reliably at lower cost and latency, allowing operators to get to market faster and achieve a higher level of security with the power of Azure. Through Microsoft’s unique partner-focused approach, we are bringing together a deep integration of ground station partner networks to enable our customers’ data delivery to an Azure region of choice at zero cost, thus reducing their total operational costs and ensuring data is available in the customer’s Azure tenant for further processing.

Pixxel

Pixxel is a space data company focused on building a constellation of hyperspectral earth imaging satellites and the analytical tools to mine insights from that data in the cloud. With the partnership of KSAT and Microsoft, Pixxel can minimize its time to market, access world-leading ground coverage, and lower its operating costs.

Microsoft’s integration with KSAT’s extensive network around the world enables Pixxel to stream their data directly to the Azure Cloud with zero data backhaul costs, and then further process it using Azure’s AI/ML services to generate customer business insights.

Loft Orbital

Loft Orbital is a space infrastructure company offering rapid, reliable, and simplified access to space as a service. We previously announced a strategic partnership with Loft Orbital for on-orbit compute to enable a new way to develop, test, and validate software applications for space systems in Microsoft Azure, and then deploy them to satellites in orbit using Loft’s space infrastructure tools and platforms. The first Azure-enabled Loft satellite will be launching next year and will be available for governments and companies to seamlessly deploy their software applications onto space hardware within the Azure environment.

Today marks the next step of our partnership. Alongside the launch of Azure Orbital Ground Station, Loft Orbital and Microsoft will support end-to-end customer missions as a service. Working with Microsoft, KSAT demonstrated how an existing customer, Loft Orbital, can test and onboard to Azure Orbital Ground Station and benefit from Microsoft and KSAT ground stations to support their specific mission needs.

Muon Space

Muon Space is developing a world-class satellite remote sensing platform to power data-driven decisions about the climate. Muon provides organizations with a turnkey solution to collecting datasets needed to achieve their environmental goals.

Many of these use cases are unlocked by global coverage and rapid cadence of observations. Azure Orbital Ground Station will support Muon’s coverage needs and operation by increasing the number of ground locations to ensure multiple contact opportunities on every orbit.

In addition to our ground stations, Muon Space is partnering with Microsoft’s sustainability product team to develop products targeting enterprise Environment Social Governance (ESG) analytics derived from their Earth Systems data.

Accelerating the pace of digital transformation for satellite network operators

Digital transformation is central to the DNA of how Microsoft operates. We believe in the power of the Azure cloud to transform industries—from healthcare, to retail, and even space. Satellite network operators and the communication they provide are unique in their digital transformation and transition to cloud technologies.

The future of the space industry depends on a way to realize the flexibility and scale that virtualization provides, transitioning away from capital-intensive hardware procurement cycles, while continuing to support existing non-virtualized networks. Azure Space is building a platform to enable the industry to make this transition seamlessly.

ST Engineering iDirect

Last year, we announced our partnership with ST Engineering iDirect, one of the industry’s largest ground segment providers. And today, we are showing progress on that partnership by announcing the first demonstration of an iDirect high data-rate modem running fully virtualized as a piece of software on Azure. This innovation is an example of Azure Space approach to digital transformation for space: bringing what was custom hardware into software that runs on standardized cloud computers—enabling flexibility, elasticity, and cost reduction for satellite operators.

SES

Two years ago, we announced our partnership with SES to bring cloud innovation to the Space industry and to ensure that our customers will have access to Azure services regardless of where they are.

This expanded into our selection of SES as the Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) network partner for Microsoft Azure orbital and co-locating ground stations of O3b mPOWER, SES’s second-generation MEO constellation, with Azure Cloud regions which will ensure customers one-hop and direct cloud access for secure and reliable delivery of Azure services and applications.

Today we’re announcing an expansion of that partnership through a new joint Satellite Communications Virtualization Program.  Through this program, Microsoft and SES will create the world’s first fully virtualized satellite communications ground network by focusing on software-defined hubs, customer edge terminals, new virtual network functions, edge cloud applications, and more. This virtualization will align cloud and satellite network architectures and enable 5G technology to be used in commercial satellite networks—bridging the gap between terrestrial and non-terrestrial connectivity networks. A virtualized architecture also allows for quicker standardization of system interfaces, which promotes more automation, API-based control, and cross-industry interoperability.

In the near term, this program will define and implement the pre-production architecture for a fully virtual SES ground station, which ultimately will serve as the blueprint for future fully virtualized ground station sites that bring the power of Azure to the Space ecosystem. For instance, a virtualized ground network will create a new paradigm where modem and antenna partners focus on developing software-defined networking technologies as opposed to hardware-centric offerings. This improves the velocity of ground system deployment and reconfiguration to match customer service needs. 

“To truly cloud-enable space networks, satellite ground networks need to be open and programmable. This is especially critical since the customer edge for satellite networks is often in remote locations or in industries such as aviation and government with stringent security and certification requirements so upgrading disparate, proprietary equipment is costly and slows the delivery of new value-added services. Together with Microsoft, we will virtualize all aspects of satellite ground networks with standard, open hardware, software-defined radios, virtualized network functions, and edge cloud applications that can be dynamically programmed to create a virtual ground network.”—John-Paul Hemingway, Chief Strategy and Product Officer of SES

Microsoft and SES will release a request for proposal (RFP) in the fourth quarter of this calendar year for the first cohort of program participants to seed this new, all-virtual ecosystem.

Conclusion

Azure Space democratizes access to and the power and capabilities of satellites to empower every organization on the planet to achieve more. These announcements are focused on what Azure and Microsoft do best—function as a platform for our customers and partners to unlock new business opportunities, empower our customers to digitally transform, and work closely with industry leaders to innovate. They forge what we aspire to enable—a future for the cloud where our customers combine the power of Azure with the possibilities of space.

How can Microsoft empower satellite operators to focus on their mission and enable them to continue the operation of their satellites, without making capital investments in their ground infrastructure?

To answer that question, Microsoft worked alongside the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and our partner Xplore, to demonstrate how the commercial cloud can provide satellite mission management for NOAA’s legacy polar satellites (NOAA-18)—extending the mission life of these satellites while reducing the cost of operation through Azure Orbital Ground Station as-a-Service (GSaaS).

Partnering with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Xplore

The initiative was part of a year-long cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with NOAA, where we worked together to determine the ability of the Azure Orbital platform to connect and downlink data from NOAA satellites. NOAA also tested the ability of Microsoft Azure to comply with specified security controls in a rapid and effective manner. Our cloud-based solutions performed successfully across all measures.

Partners are central to Microsoft’s approach to space, and they played a key role in this project. As part of the CRADA, we leveraged our partner network to bring together Azure Orbital with Xplore’s Major Tom mission control software platform. This approach enabled NOAA to transmit commands to the NOAA-18 spacecraft and verify the receipt of these commands. This test was conducted in real-time, and data was flowing bi-directionally with the NOAA-18 satellite.

Commercial technology enabled the rapid demonstration of these innovative capabilities. Xplore was able to move quickly to bring functions of NOAA’s heritage space system architecture to the Azure cloud through their Major Tom platform. This highlights the power of Azure as a platform to bring together Azure Orbital as the ground station, Major Tom to provide the mission control software for commanding and telemetry viewing, and the NOAA operators to monitor the scenarios.

This successful demonstration shows that the Azure Orbital GSaaS, and the partner network it brings together, enables sustainable outcomes for satellite operators. Our work with NOAA is just the beginning of the journey. We look forward to partnering with additional satellite operators to help them reduce their infrastructure management costs, lower latency, increase capacity and resiliency, and empower their missions through the power of Azure Orbital GSaaS and the Azure cloud.

Learn more about Azure Orbital and Azure Space

To learn more about Azure Orbital GSaaS, visit our product page, or take a look at the session with Microsoft Mechanics, which goes into more detail on how we connect space satellites around the world and bring earth observational data into Azure for analytics via Microsoft and partner ground stations. We demonstrate how it works and how it fits into Microsoft’s strategy with Azure Space to bring cloud connectivity everywhere on earth and to make space satellite data accessible for everyday use cases.

More broadly, Azure Space marks the convergence between global satellite constellations and the cloud. As the two join together, our purpose is to bring cloud connectivity to even the most remote corners of the earth, connect to satellites, and harness the vast amount of data collected from space. This can help solve both long-term trending issues affecting the earth like climate change, or short-term real-time issues such as connected agriculture, monitoring and controlling wildfires, or identifying supply chain bottlenecks.

Learn more about Azure Space today.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) aren’t space tourists. They’re workers, scientists and engineers. They are doing critical science missions in an intense operating environment where safety is paramount. On spacewalks they repair equipment, install new instruments and upgrade the largest spacecraft ever flown. Just like workers here on Earth, their gloves can show wear and tear – even rips and cuts – presenting potential safety concerns.

To prevent problems from arising, astronauts working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) must take photos of their spacesuit gloves during and after every spacewalk and transmit them down to Earth for inspection. From there, NASA analysts examine photos of the gloves, looking for any damage that could pose a hazard, and then send the results back to the astronauts on the ISS.

This process gets the job done with the ISS’s low orbit distance of about 250 miles from Earth, but things will be different when NASA once again sends people to the moon, and then to Mars – 140 million miles away from Earth.

From Mars, it will take up to 20 minutes to say “hello” to someone on Earth, and another 20 minutes for someone on Earth to say “hello” back. That means it could take a total of at least 40 minutes to determine if an astronaut’s glove checks out – which is simply too long to wait.

To solve this, a Microsoft team working with NASA scientists and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) engineers are developing a system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and HPE’s Spaceborne Computer-2 to scan and analyze glove images directly on the ISS – potentially giving autonomy to astronauts onboard with limited support from Earth.

Detecting flaws in a critical safety component

Astronaut gloves have five layers. The outer layer consists of a rubberized coating that provides grip and acts as the first layer of defense. Next comes a layer of a cut-resistant material called Vectran®. The additional three layers maintain the suit’s pressure and protects against the temperature extremes in space – which can range anywhere from 180 degrees Fahrenheit to 235. degrees Fahrenheit.

The outer layer is meant to stand up to a good amount of abuse, but problems can start when wear reaches the Vectran® layer. After that comes the pressure bladder for the suit – which is essentially the safety layer for the astronaut.

Gloves are most vulnerable between the thumb and index finger, given how often those two digits are used to grip objects. Moreover, some areas on the ISS itself have been exposed to hazards such as micrometeorites for more than two decades. The impacts from these tiny particles have created numerous sharp edges on handrails and other structural components.

Further hazards will be encountered on the moon and Mars, where the lack of natural erosion from wind or water means rock particles are more like broken bits of glass than pebbles or sand granules here on Earth.

To create the onboard glove monitor, NASA’s team began with collections of new, undamaged gloves, and gloves that had seen wear and tear both during spacewalks and terrestrial training. They then photographed and went through the damaged gloves to tag specific types of wear – areas where the outer rubberized silicone layer had begun to flake off, or places where the vital Vectran® layer was compromised. This was done through Azure Cognitive Services’ Custom Vision – NASA engineers opened the pictures of gloves in a web browser, and clicked on examples of damage.

This data was then used to train a Microsoft Azure cloud-based AI system, and the results compared with actual damage reports and images from NASA. Leveraging the power of AI cloud compute capabilities, the tool then generated a probability score for the likelihood of damage to a particular place on the glove.

After a spacewalk, crew members take pictures of astronauts’ gloves while they remove their spacesuits in the airlock. These pictures are then immediately sent to HPE’s Spaceborne Computer-2 onboard the ISS, where the Glove Analyzer model rapidly looks for signs of damage live in space. If any damage is detected, a message is immediately sent to Earth, highlighting areas for further review by NASA engineers.

“What we demonstrated is that we can perform AI and edge processing on the ISS and analyze gloves in real time,” said Ryan Campbell, senior software engineer at Microsoft Azure Space. “Because we’re literally next to the astronaut when we’re processing, we can run our tests faster than the images can be sent to the ground.”

HPE contributes space-ready computing hardware and software

Through Microsoft’s partnership with HPE, together we’re able to offer NASA the opportunity to test this AI technology directly on the ISS by operating on the HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 which is currently on a multi-year mission aboard the station.

The HPE Spaceborne Computer-2, an edge computing and AI-enabled system designed with rugged solutions capable of withstanding the rough conditions of space, can perform more than 2 trillion calculations – or 2 teraflops – per second.

Currently, the damage-assessment tool developed by NASA, Microsoft, and HPE is in a trial stage – meaning it runs analyses on the gloves but is not used to make crucial safety decisions.  Still, the technology shows great promise. The goal now is to continue this testing to demonstrate its reliability over time.

Glove program could extend to other capabilities

Although the glove program is new to the ISS, NASA sees ways to extend the technology to other areas where it could look for possible damage to other critical components such as docking hatches. Further, it’s possible that Microsoft HoloLens 2 or a successor could help astronauts rapidly visually scan for glove damage, or even eventually facilitate assisted repairs on complicated machinery.

Space is a powerful laboratory for innovation. By pushing humans and equipment to their limits, space drives engineers everywhere to expand the limits of their ingenuity and skills. For the Microsoft team, this opportunity to apply the power of AI to help keep NASA’s astronaut’s gloves safer serves as a first step.

“One of NASA’s missions is to explore, discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity. This project hits upon all of that, and it’s just a starting point,” said Jennifer Ott, data and AI specialist at Microsoft. “Bringing cloud computing power to the ultimate edge through projects like this allows us to think about and prepare for what we can safely do next – as we expect longer-range human spaceflights in the future and as we collectively begin pushing that edge further out.”

Tags: AI, Azure Space, Microsoft Azure

Any developer can be a space developer with Azure. Microsoft has a long history of empowering the software development community. We have the world’s most comprehensive developer tools and platforms from Github to Visual Studio, and we support a wide range of industries and use cases from healthcare, financial services, critical industries, and now space.

As Microsoft expands its focus toward space, we are bringing the power, approachability, and security of our developer story to the next frontier. Microsoft is empowering developers with a platform for on-orbit compute at the ultimate edge, so that spacecraft running AI workloads are connected to the hyperscale Azure cloud.

We are reducing the barriers to entry for space application development and increasing the flexibility and modularity of software solutions. Enabling those building space workloads to easily leverage the productivity of our developer tools and integration with Azure services—to develop, analyze, deploy, and operate space applications in orbit and on the ground.

Today we are bringing new partnerships and capabilities to the development community, including:

• NASA and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) are testing AI at the ultimate edge for Astronaut Safety.
• New partnerships are bringing development capabilities to on-orbit compute.
  • Unlocking new on-orbit climate data applications with Thales Alenia Space (TAS).
  • Developing new technologies with Loft Orbital to demonstrate re-taskable satellite functions and seamless connectivity to the terrestrial cloud.
  • Demonstrating reconfigurable on-orbit compute and AI processing with Ball Aerospace.
• Rapidly analyzing spaceborne data with the new reference architecture for Azure Orbital with Azure Synapse.
• Empowering analysts with newly integrated Blackshark.ai geospatial models are available with Azure Orbital.

Testing AI for Astronaut Safety at the ultimate edge

Microsoft, NASA, and HPE developed an AI workload test to run on the International Space Station (ISS) that could detect damage to astronaut equipment.

Using Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, NASA and Microsoft created a computer vision application that identifies the condition of the space gloves. Once trained in the cloud, the app was deployed to the HPE Spaceborne Computer-2, an AI-enabled software and hardware platform, aboard the ISS, and then operated at the ultimate edge enabling both local and remote analysis of the glove conditions.

Learn more about this project today.

On-orbit partnerships

Thales Alenia Space unlocks new on-orbit climate data applications with Microsoft to gather unmatched Earth observation insights.

Microsoft is partnering with Thales Alenia Space to demonstrate and validate on-orbit compute technologies with a demonstration onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67 percent) and Leonardo (33 percent), is the leader in orbital infrastructures and is developing high-power, edge-computing solutions for space.  Microsoft and Thales Alenia Space will deploy a powerful on-orbit computer, an on-orbit application framework, and high-performance Earth Observation sensors to unlock new on-orbit climate data processing applications for the benefit of our planet’s sustainability. In collaboration with Microsoft Research (MSR), Microsoft and Thales Alenia Space will work with research teams in remote sensing, computer vision, and climate science to demonstrate the potential of next-generation on-orbit compute for Earth observation. This space edge computing capacity will allow gathering faster, to-the-point Earth observation insights immediately applicable for our planet’s surveillance, understanding, and protection. This joint collaboration comes a year after the integration of Deeper Vision, an Earth observation data analytics software by Thales Alenia Space, into Azure Space and is a strong milestone towards joint strategic ambitions between Microsoft and Thales Alenia Space which have just signed a Memorandum of Understanding on geospatial solutions, digital ground segment, and space edge computing.

New partnership with Loft Orbital to advance space edge computing and software deployment to orbit.

The Microsoft and Loft Orbital partnership will enable a new way to develop, test, and validate software applications for space systems in Microsoft Azure, and then seamlessly deploy them to satellites in orbit using Loft’s space infrastructure tools and platforms. This solution also offers more efficient paths to flight for modern ‘massless’ payloads, where parties needing space capabilities can leverage shared on-orbit hardware rather than having to build and launch their own.

Working together with Loft, we are bringing core satellite capabilities like tasking which has typically been executed on the ground, to a more agile commanding and tasking paradigm executed on-orbit. To do so, we are integrating the Microsoft Azure suite of products, including terrestrial cloud and ground stations services, with Loft software capabilities that provide access to spacecraft, including on-orbit edge computing environment and sensors.

This strategic partnership will provide government and commercial users with a scalable and simplified capability to deploy software in space, enabling new paradigms in remote sensing, edge compute, on-orbit autonomy, and other areas. This groundbreaking capability will be brought to market first on a jointly used satellite launching in 2023 that will provide a host environment for third-party software applications, enabling users to deploy and operate their applications in orbit.

Demonstrating reconfigurable on-orbit compute processing with Ball Aerospace.

Ball Aerospace, a systems integrator with a heritage of designing and building government satellite programs and mission applications, is planning a series of on-orbit testbed satellites that target the agile implementation of new software and hardware for the US Government. Together, Ball Aerospace and Microsoft are collaborating on the execution of these spacecraft missions to demonstrate reconfigurable on-orbit processing technologies, leveraging the Azure Cloud. This includes the use of containerization and cloud on the edge to enable a software-defined mission approach that embraces standards such as Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA), Universal Command and Control Interface (UCI), and Open Mission Systems (OMS). Modular and reconfigurable on-orbit compute will support multiple complex missions for the United States Government and grant the ability to support future concepts for smaller, agile, multi-mission capabilities across all federal space programs.

Analytics for spaceborne data using Azure Orbital

Satellite imagery is a valuable asset; using AI with satellite imagery is a value multiplier. Using geospatial AI over the same area of interest with regularly refreshed satellite imagery, analysts can monitor change detection for their respective areas of interest.

The use of AI with satellite imagery is a powerful, cost-effective tool spanning all industries that monitor, measure, and/or monetize large areas of the Earth. Extracting this value is hard work as satellite imagery consists of unstructured, big data that requires significant resources to transform and analyze in order to access information and store and use it as structured data.

The Azure Space team released a reference architecture articulating how to apply AI to satellite imagery at scale using Azure resources. This reference architecture makes use of Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Lake Store Gen 2, Apache Spark Pool, Azure Data Share, Azure Batch, and Azure Container Registry. This Azure workflow reduces the complexity of extracting insights from remote sensing data by articulating how to group Azure resources to ingest, store, transform, and apply AI over satellite imagery then use the results for various applications. Azure resources allow for flexibility in the workflow, management of storage options, parallelization of workload, and (re)use of containerized models.

Given Azure’s orchestration flexibility, customers can bring their own imagery. Alternatively, if a customer needs imagery, they can call another imagery provider API specifying the respective area of interest, resolution, and vintage of their choosing through Microsoft’s partner Airbus Defense and Space or Microsoft’s Planetary Computer as an option. Customers can also bring their own trained models into the orchestration. If a customer needs geospatial intelligence and remote sensing AI, Microsoft has partnerships with Blackshark.ai, Orbital Insight, and Esri. For those customers looking to build AI, Microsoft offers tools like Azure Machine Learning and Azure Custom Vision.

Blackshark.ai geospatial models are available for analytics on Azure

Blackshark.ai is offering an end-to-end geospatial platform. Part of this platform is the geospatial analytics service called Orca, which detects objects, and extracts attributes about buildings, vegetation, and a growing number of other detection classes, such as roads or infrastructure in the future. This service is now available through Azure Synapse Analytics.

The containerized Orca service–fully integrated into Azure Synapse Analytics provides fast, global-scale, and accurate insights based on satellite or aerial imagery data sets that are available via Azure or provided by customers. Whenever fresh input data is available, the Orca service can provide precise insights for object and change detection, enabling applications such as efficient 3D mapping services, logistic planning, risk analysis, telecom signal propagation planning, or disaster relief planning. More detailed information about the Orca service is available on the Orca support page.

Learn more

Through our announcements today we are continuing our mission to reduce the barriers to entry to space. We are working closely with our partners to empower and enable developers that are building space workloads to easily leverage the best of Azure services and capabilities to transform their approach to development for space. We’re also working closely with an expanding partner ecosystem to help drive innovation on and off the planet.

Through the combination of cloud and on-orbit space capabilities, new applications are being created and iterated upon even faster which in turn provides original approaches to challenging problems. We look forward to meeting our industry peers to continue this discussion at this week’s Space Symposium.

Learn more about Azure Space today.