Azure Space: A leap to another planet of cloud computing

Microsoft has unveiled its most ambitious bet on cloud services for enterprises with Azure Space, a new service that aims to help companies improve their communication and satellite-level capabilities.

Experts from the space industry and Microsoft engineers have been responsible for developing new capabilities in the cloud that open new areas of innovation, such as unlocking cloud computing in previously unimaginable scenarios, simulations of space missions, or the extraction of knowledge from the data provided by satellites. We’ll tell you all the details!

What is Azure Space?

Azure Space is a set of services, partnerships, and global strategy focused on innovation and whose main objective is to offer a platform that integrates cloud and satellite technology. This combination connects any device anywhere globally, facilitating accessibility for all industries regardless of their geographic location.

Microsoft’s current network has more than 250,000 kilometers of undersea, terrestrial, and metro fiber optics, helping billions of people worldwide stay connected. Azure Space is aimed primarily at those companies that also operate in remote locations. Data access and bandwidth availability are a challenge for them, and this new platform breaks down those limits.

Benefits of Azure Space

Azure Space is based on three fundamental pillars: multi-orbital, multi-band, and multi-vendor capability. From this, the solutions that can be developed for the industry have the following advantages:

• Joint innovation in space through collaboration with leading companies in the space community.
• Discovery of information that will help the community to launch faster and more safely.
• Management of a large amount of data generated by satellites.
• Connectivity from the most remote locations.
• Design of highly complex space systems.
• Accessibility and resilience of hyperscale services.
• Improved quality of satellite imagery combining AI and cloud.
• Ability to see between clouds through the use of SAR and SpaceEye.

Microsoft Azure Space: Products

Within the Azure Space program, we find two main products launched during the last months: Azure Orbital Emulator and Azure Modular Data Center.

Azure Orbital

Azure Orbital is a ground station that acts as a communications service with a satellite and allows you to control it. The service performs simple and integrated data scaling and processing for operations directly from Azure.

It is based on four main pillars:

• Fast and direct data ingestion with Orbital ground stations: simplifies the process of data ingestion, both process, storage and AI, and data analysis.
• Satellite contact scheduling with Microsoft ground stations and partners: opens up a broad ecosystem of partner options from industry leaders.
• Simple data processing in Azure: signal is processed with high-speed software modems that integrate directly.
• Expanded ground station and business network: enables interconnecting and colocating ground stations to transform satellite connectivity offerings.

Azure Modular Data Center

Azure Modular Data Center is a complete data center solution with a transportable field unit for use from anywhere.

It is built for on-the-go, enabling Azure processing and storage resources no matter where they are needed. It also provides reliability and security, even in executing the most critical applications.

Finally, it highlights its incredible versatility and the cloud’s ability to move data to disconnected or occasionally connected environments.

Azure Space means greater empowerment of partners and customers, who get many more features through a secure and fast network from anywhere in the world.

If you want to know how this service fits your business, we will be happy to study your case.