Can a chatbot help Pentagon planners find the satellite data they need to understand what’s happening in a global hotspot? Microsoft Azure Space recently showed the U.S. military how an application beefed up with AI could do just that.
The daylong demonstration, which was conducted for the Defense Innovation Unit’s Hybrid Space Architecture program last month, is among several space-related developments that Microsoft and its partners showcased today in advance of next week’s Space Symposium in Colorado.
Other developments include a collaboration with Ball Aerospace and Loft Federal on an experimental satellite program for the Defense Department’s Space Development Agency; a new frontier for Microsoft Azure’s partnership with Viasat; and a milestone for the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center.
“Azure Space has been committed to enabling people to achieve more, both on and off the planet,” Stephen Kitay, senior director of Microsoft Azure Space, told GeekWire. “And this commitment encompasses not only commercial [applications], but also empowers government missions as well. Digital transformation within the government is the key to unlocking the full potential of what’s possible in space, and Microsoft is providing these technologies and solutions to government agencies alongside our partners to make this transformation possible.”
Chatbot turns into satbot
Microsoft’s demonstration of a GPT-enabled chat interface for seeking out and requesting relevant satellite data illustrates how the generative artificial intelligence technology that created so much buzz for Bing Chat can be enlisted for national security applications. Kitay said the application also made use of Microsoft Teams, a group chat platform.
“We leveraged the GPT models, which use a natural language approach to ask questions,” Kitay said. “So an analyst is able to ask a natural question, which can then be correlated with a location. That location then got applied to the standardized geospatial catalog that we built for the Defense Innovation Unit, that then provided them with an image.”
The imagery could be drawn from BlackSky’s electro-optical satellite data, or from Umbra’s radar readings. And if the data analyst needed more up-to-date imagery, that could be requested from the satellite through the chatbot interface.
“It is leveraging these artificial intelligence advances and bringing them in ways to help understand space data much more easily and rapidly,” Kitay said.
Microsoft’s demonstration also involved setting up the catalog for geospatial data sets, and showing how Azure Orbital Cloud Access could provide resilient edge-to-cloud connectivity through SpaceX’s Starlink network and SES satellites.
What’s NExT in satellite tech
Microsoft Azure Space’s partnership with Ball Aerospace and Loft Federal will result in the creation of a satellite constellation that the Space Development Agency and the U.S. Space Force can use to test and demonstrate a variety of payloads and ground systems for next-generation military communications. The project is known as the National Defense Space Architecture Experimental Testbed, or NExT.
Ball Aerospace is the prime contractor, and the constellation’s 10 satellites will make use of Loft Orbital’s turnkey satellite platform and satellite operations software. Loft Federal will procure commercial launch services and oversee the launch campaign. Microsoft will provide Azure Government cloud and ground station infrastructure, as well as productivity solutions for secure mission-critical communications.
“It’s exciting, because these new technologies are really going to help benefit these national security and other government missions,” Kitay said. “They certainly have extremely challenging missions, and need the best technologies for them.”
The NExT contract, which was awarded to Ball Aerospace last year, has a total potential value of $176 million and calls for launches to begin in 2024.
Viasat and True Anomaly
Microsoft says it’s partnering with Viasat Real-Time Earth to offer more capability for managing spacecraft and space missions in real time using Azure Orbital Ground Station as a service.
“This provides our customers an expanded array of locations across the globe, and we are connecting Viasat’s antennas to Microsoft’s wide-area network in the cloud to enable high-speed data transfer and ultimately provide more resiliency for ground operations and lower latency,” Kitay said.
One of the first customers to take advantage of the Microsoft-Viasat relationship is Colorado-based True Anomaly, a space security and sustainability startup that is developing an autonomous orbital vehicle called Jackal. The spacecraft are designed to monitor and potentially approach other objects in orbit, including satellites launched by potential attackers. The first Jackals are set to be launched in October.
“As True Anomaly builds out its constellation of spacecraft, it will be leveraging Azure Orbital Ground Station and Viasat’s antennas, and together we’ll be able to support them with the ground infrastructure needed to command and control their satellites, and be able to bring data securely from space into the cloud to support their mission so they can focus on what they need to do,” Kitay said.
Boosting space security
The Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or ISAC, was established in 2019 as a public-private clearinghouse for information about cybersecurity and potential threats to space infrastructure. Microsoft is a founding member.
Space ISAC’s Operational Watch Center reached its initial operational capability on March 30, with Microsoft Azure serving as its cloud computing platform.
“The Watch Center enables a collaborative environment to provide visualization of the environmental conditions and threat information to rapidly detect, assess and respond to vulnerabilities, incidents and threats to space systems,” Kitay told GeekWire. “The Watch Center is supported by a dedicated team of 10 in-person analysts, with additional virtual support enabled by the Azure cloud architecture.”
In a blog posting, Kitay said the center can take advantage of Microsoft’s “unique view into emerging threats,” which involves the analysis of more than 65 trillion threat signals every day across more than 200 consumer and commercial services.
