Microsoft making a splash with push into deep space

Azure’s Lynn McDonald: unlocking the riches from a trove of satellite data. Picture: Microsoft

Microsoft is pushing deeper into the Australian market. On Thursday, it launched Azure Space to be based in Adelaide’s Lot 14 innovation hub.

From GPS to defence, data sitting in satellites underpins modern life. The tech giant sees cloud power delivering a whole new level of capability for customers right across the economy.

Microsoft signed a statement of intent with the Australian Space Agency to help it triple the size of the nation’s space sector to $12bn adding 20,000 jobs by 2030; it has inked a deal with Nokia on 5G and the South Australian government for space projects for sectors like mining; there is a collaboration with the Lot 14-based Australian Institute of Machine Learning; and a new Space Startups Australia program.

Even before The Dish affectionately chronicled the country’s vital role in Apollo 11’s 1969 moon landing, Australia’s geostrategic southern hemisphere advantage was well known. Microsoft first launched Azure Space in 2020 with heavyweight partners SpaceX, SES, KSAT and Viasat.

Australia is now the biggest space commitment for the tech giant outside the US. The Australian born corporate vice president of Azure Global says he sees opportunity to partner with organisations of all sizes.

Running the Australian operation is a former Colonel in the US Air Force, Lynn McDonald, who moved to Canberra from Washington in March.

McDonald spent 25 years in the space industry including leading the squadron that runs space-based infra-red systems and working with the Pentagon on GPS, space launches and satellite operations for intelligence. All pretty neat from 30,000 feet, she says.

Her mission is to leverage Microsoft cloud-powered know-how to unlock the value in the trove of data from satellites orbiting the earth, simplifying and streamlining access for defence, intelligence and increasingly sectors like farming and mining.

Another attraction to Australia is its internal remoteness where technology is taking over. McDonald says space is moving on from its hardware focus which has had its limitations. “When you digitise platforms and virtualise components it really opens up the ability to build flexible, open architectures that integrate easily that can evolve with changing technology.”

Artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, machine learning augmented reality are all capabilities in the mix.

Through Azure Orbital, Microsoft is building out “ground station as a service” and satellite connectivity both native to the Azure platform but also with customers or partners.

McDonald says Azure’s partnership with Nokia will run initial pathfinder use cases around space technology and 5G particularly with remote operations in South Australia.

“When you think about defence scenarios, mining scenarios that are operating with high bandwidth, high speed, low latency needs in their mission operations, there is the ability to take the space technology and connectivity and compute advanced analytics capacity and combine that with 5G to really open up the ability to connect the unconnected in quite advanced ways,” she said.

In mining the tech giant plans to underpin greener, safer production in remote Australia.

“In that 5G environment you can connect in your IOT sensors, your solar powered capabilities, autonomous vehicles and be able to lay advanced analytics over that to understand in real time exactly what the autonomous vehicles are doing,” saysMcDonald. “You can optimise fuel usage and create more environmentally friendly fuel use in the mine.”

Lynn McDonald says a real focus will be enabling new business at Lot 14.

The space start-ups backed by Microsoft will have Azure credits, access to Microsoft technologies and specialists to support them and Microsoft promises a broader investment in skills.

Microsoft’s investment in Lot 14 is another endorsement of the growing hub that has also attracted other major cloud providers and defence stakeholders, including American firm Lockheed Martin, which also has a partnership with the Australian Institute of Machine Learning. McDonald is be interested in working with a number of the defence stakeholders.

Lot 14 is also building its own satellite, the first to be put into space by a state government under a $6.5m partnership between the SA government and the state space industry. The SASAT1 low orbit satellite will be used in applications for emergency services and disaster management response, mining and the environment across the state.

McDonald sees this as all part of developing sovereign space capability both in defence but also commercially where cybersecurity is become such a core competency demanded in business.

In June, Microsoft became the first hyperscale cloud service provider to join the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Centre as a founding member.

Space ISAC shares information on threats to space systems and the ground networks supporting them where a growing focus is cybersecurity. Its members include Aerospace Corp, Lockheed Martin, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and Northrop Grumman.

“It’s a whole community focused around cybersecurity,” says McDonald. “For critical assets like space assets, that intersection of space and cybersecurity is absolutely essential.”