An artist’s conception shows Telesat’s phase 1 LEO satellite in orbit. (Telesat illustration)
How will Pentagon planners cope with the torrents of data expected to rain down from a constellation of satellites monitoring hotspots from low Earth orbit?
Microsoft and Ball Aerospace say they have shown that the cloud can handle it, and not just handle it, but process multiple streams of satellite data five times faster than the Pentagon’s target speed.
This year a prototype system was demonstrated for the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit in support of the Commercially Augmented Spatial Interconnection Network Operations Program Office, or CASINO, which is under the aegis of the Systems Center. US Space Force Space and Missile
For the purposes of the test, Telesat provided access to its network of satellites in low Earth orbit. Ball Aerospace provided the event-driven architecture to deal with data transmitted from space. And Microsoft Azure provided the power of cloud computing to process data and extract information.
The Telesat satellite sent up to 20 separate streams of readings from the simulated aerial persistent infrared sensor, also known as OPIR. These data streams could be crucial in detecting and countering missile threats, but processing the data stream is not an easy task.
“What this prototype did was demonstrate that low Earth orbit is a viable capability for the Space Force, working with the cloud. Contrary to the goals of the program that established the DIU, processing on the ground with spatial data is approximately five times faster with the Azure cloud, ”he told. Tom Keane, corporate vice president, Azure Global.
“We think it’s very important,” Keane said.
The team was able to transmit OPIR data via Telesat satellites to Azure in the data center, as well as directly to a tactical vehicle equipped with an Azure Stack Edge device. “This provides the ability to have satellite connectivity in a vehicle, or even something that is moving, like an airplane in flight,” Keane said.
Microsoft-Ball’s data processing demo showed that satellite data can be transferred and processed in a tactical vehicle. (Microsoft photo)
Steve Smith, vice president and general manager of systems engineering solutions at Ball Aerospace, said the system could open new frontiers for defense-related satellite applications.
“We’ve been in the earth processing business for 30 years, so this idea of not having to build a building and not having to haul a lot of processors and not have to haul a lot of storage and have that be your system on the ground… the ability to get away from that is exciting, ”Smith said. “The cloud becomes your earth system.”
When it comes to Microsoft’s ability to deal with satellite big data, CASINO isn’t the only game in town.
The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has a program called Blackjack that aims to develop a constellation of low-Earth orbit broadband satellites for defense applications. Microsoft is part of a team working on Blackjack’s satellite mission management system, known as Pit Boss.
“I think it’s fair to say that we continue to work together with our partners to win more business and compete for business,” Keane said.
Keane added that the information gleaned from the CASINO project could also fuel commercial ventures, including Microsoft Azure’s partnership with SpaceX and its Starlink satellite broadband network.
“The work that we are doing here, the experimentation, the work together with the clients is absolutely applicable to the associations that we have in other parts of the space, like the Starlink society,” he said. “In fact, we demonstrated from a moving fuselage, using a Ball antenna, using the Starlink matrix to speak in Azure. So we’ve had the Azure cloud capabilities put to use in an airframe in flight, along with Ball.
Keane said the next steps will focus on innovative ways to transform satellite data into insight, on the battlefield or in the office. “When we look at doing things with that data, with augmented intelligence, with predictive analytics … the possibilities there almost become endless,” he said.
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