Read an article last week about all the startup activity that’s taking place in space systems and infrastructure (see: As rocket companies proliferate … new tech emerges leading to a new space race). This is a consequence of cheap(er) launch systems from SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and others.
SpaceBelt, storage in space
One startup that caught my eye was SpaceBelt from Cloud Constellation Corporation, that’s planning to put PB (4X library of congress) of data storage in a constellation of LEO satellites.
The LEO storage pool will be populated by multiple nodes (satellites) with a set of geo-synchronous access points to the LEO storage pool. Customers use ground based secure terminals to talk with geosynchronous access satellites which communicate to the LEO storage nodes to access data.
Their main selling points appear to be data security and availability. The only way to access the data is through secured satellite downlinks/uplinks and then you only get to the geo-synchronous satellites. From there, those satellites access the LEO storage cloud directly. Customers can’t access the storage cloud without going through the geo-synchronous layer first and the secured terminals.
The problem with terrestrial data is that it is prone to security threats as well as natural disasters which take out a data center or a region. But with all your data residing in a space cloud, such concerns shouldn’t be a problem. (However, gaining access to your ground stations is a whole different story.
AWS and Lockheed-Martin supply new ground station service
The other company of interest is not a startup but a link up between Amazon and Lockheed Martin (see: Amazon-Lockheed Martin …) that supplies a new cloud based, satellite ground station as a service offering. The new service will use Lockheed Martin ground stations.
Currently, the service is limited to S-Band and attennas located in Denver, but plans are to expand to X-Band and locations throughout the world. The plan is to have ground stations located close to AWS data centers, so data center customers can have high speed, access to satellite data.
There are other startups in the ground station as a service space, but none with the resources of Amazon-Lockheed. All of this competition is just getting off the ground, but a few have been leasing idle ground station resources to customers. The AWS service already has a few big customers, like DigitalGlobe.
One thing we have learned, is that the appeal of cloud services is as much about the ecosystem that surrounds it, as the service offering itself. So having satellite ground stations as a service is good, but having these services, tied directly into other public cloud computing infrastructure, is much much better. Google, Microsoft, IBM are you listening?
Data centers in space
Why stop at storage? Wouldn’t it be better to support both storage and computation in space. That way access latencies wouldn’t be a concern. When terrestrial disasters occur, it’s not just data at risk. Ditto, for security threats.
Having whole data centers, would represent a whole new stratum of cloud computing. Also, now IT could implement space native applications.
If Microsoft can run a data center under the oceans, I see no reason they couldn’t do so in orbit. Especially when human flight returns to NASA/SpaceX. Just imagine admins and service techs as astronauts.
And yet, security and availability aren’t the only threats one has to deal with. What happens to the space cloud when war breaks out and satellite killers are set loose.
Yes, space infrastructure is not subject to terrestrial disasters or internet based security risks, but there are other problems besides those and war that exist such as solar storms and space debris clouds. .
In the end, it’s important to have multiple, non-overlapping risk profiles for your IT infrastructure. That is each IT deployment, may be subject to one set of risks but those sets are disjoint with another IT deployment option. IT in space, that is subject to solar storms, space debris, and satellite killers is a nice complement to terrestrial cloud data centers, subject to natural disasters, internet security risks, and other earth-based, man made disasters.
On the other hand, a large, solar storm like the 1859 one, could knock every data system on the world or in orbit, out. As for under the sea, it probably depends on how deep it was submerged!!
Photo Credit(s): Screen shots from SpaceBelt youtube video (c) SpaceBelt
Screens shot from AWS Ground Station as a Service sign up page (c) Amazon-Lockheed
Screen shots from Microsoft’s Under the sea news feature (c) Microsoft
