Cloud computing is betting on outer space

Source:-livemint

On 22 September, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the preview of Azure Orbital at Microsoft Ignite 2020 in New Orleans. According to Microsoft, Orbital is ‘Ground Station as a Service (GSaaS)’, which is aimed at helping its customers to communicate with, and analyse data from, their satellites or spacecrafts on a subscription basis.

The Redmond headquartered company, however, has competition in the skies. Almost five months earlier, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) had announced a beta of its Cloud Satellite service. But it is Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), the cloud computing arm of Amazon.com, which has a head start in space.

Around two years ago, it launched the AWS Ground Station to allow its customers to control their satellite communications, process data, and scale operations without having to build or manage their own ground station infrastructure. On 30 June, AWS said it was establishing a new space unit called the Aerospace and Satellite Solutions.

These are but a few cases in point to demonstrate that leading cloud computing service providers have begun flexing their muscles in space too. But why is there a sudden race to outer space?

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), non-geostationary satellite orbits (NGSOs) such as medium earth orbits (MEO) and low earth orbits (LEO) are being increasingly used worldwide. NGSOs, unlike fixed or geostationary satellite orbits, move across the sky during their orbit around the earth. With space launches becoming more affordable and accessible, a slew of private companies are starting to rely on this new array of satellites.

They are used for applications like weather forecasting, surface imaging, communications, and video broadcasts. However, the data from these satellites need to be processed and analysed in data centres on the ground, which explains the term ‘ground stations’.

While the cost of the satellite itself is falling, building and running ground stations can cost up to $1 million or more, according to a recent blog post by Jeff Barr, chief evangelist for AWS. Complex data processing also requires a lot of computing power, and the huge data storage requirements only add to the cost.

Leading cloud computing service providers are now starting to offer satellite operators the option to use these ground stations on a ‘pay-per-use’ or subscription basis, thus, helping the latter save on capital expenditure costs by employing an operating expenditure model.