Microsoft has announced Azure Space to evolve Azure for the mission needs of the space community as it grows in innovation with far lower barriers of access for public and private-sector organizations.
Microsoft aims to make space connectivity and compute increasingly attainable with Azure Space across industries including agriculture, energy, telecommunications, and government. The company has brought together a team of space industry veterans to work alongside their product engineers and scientists to build cloud capabilities that meet the unique needs of space, including simulating space missions, discovering insights from satellite data, and fueling innovation both on the ground and in orbit.
Microsoft also announced partnerships that will enable fast, secure satellite networking anywhere in the world as part of its Azure Space ecosystem. These partnerships will bring multi-orbit, multi-band, multi-vendor satellite capabilities alongside the recently announced Azure Orbital ground station service for comprehensive satellite connectivity solutions.
Microsoft is also working on developing repeatable digital technologies to help the space community launch faster with mission assurance, such as the Azure Orbital Emulator announced today. Azure Orbital Emulator is an emulation environment that conducts massive satellite constellation simulations to allow satellite developers to evaluate and train AI algorithms and satellite networking before launching. The company has shared that Azure Orbital Emulator is already being used by Azure Government customers.
With Azure Space, Microsoft is looking at supporting customers on their space missions off and on the planet, and to use the power of cloud and space technology to help business across industries.
Source: Microsoft