Azure Orbital Preview
Satellite ground station and scheduling service connected to Azure for fast downlinking of data
Schedule contact with satellites to directly ingest and process data with Azure
Azure Orbital is a Ground Station as a Service that provides communication and control of your satellite. Orbital enables easy and integrated data processing and scale for your operations directly from Azure. Leverage familiar Azure services to process and store your data at scale.
Azure Orbital – Ground Station as a Service announcement at Ignite 2020
Introducing Azure Orbital, a new fully managed Ground Station as a Service (GSaaS) that enables customers to communicate, downlink and process data from their satellites/spacecrafts on a pay-as-you-go basis without needing them to build their own satellite ground stations.
An integrated and native service for customers and partners to downlink data without building or managing their own satellite ground station infrastructure
Easily deploy and host third-party antennas and equipment in Azure regions to enable broadband connectivity and data processing
A rich, digital platform for satellite operators to virtualise ground stations and scale their business and global infrastructure using Azure
Only pay for what you use with any antenna in the global Azure Orbital network. No long-term contracts or hidden fees
Fast and direct data ingestion using Orbital ground stations
Satellites are providing huge datasets that require complex processing, data routing and storage.
With Azure Orbital, your data is directly ingested in Azure. This enables the seamless application and use of Azure services such as compute, storage, AI and data analytics for fast data processing.
Schedule satellite contacts across both partner and Microsoft ground stations
In addition to using Microsoft’s ground stations, take advantage of our rich ecosystem of partner options from industry leaders such as KSAT and others to schedule contacts with your satellites.
Seamless data processing in Azure with accelerated software modems
Process your signal using high-speed software modems directly integrated or easily leverage technology partner offerings for signal, image processing and calibration through the Azure Marketplace.
Extend your operator business and ground station network with Azure’s global infrastructure
Co-locate your ground stations or interconnect your global infrastructure with Azure. Leverage Azure’s global network and services to transform your satellite connectivity offerings and augment all of your ground network needs.
Comprehensive security and compliance, built in the largest compliance portfolio in the industry
-
Microsoft invests more than USD 1 billion annually on cybersecurity research and development.
-
We employ more than 3,500 security experts who are dedicated to data security and privacy.
-
Azure has more certifications than any other cloud provider. View the comprehensive list.
Frequently asked questions about Azure Orbital
-
Azure Orbital will co-locate Microsoft ground stations in our data centres or in close proximity. In addition, Azure Orbital will enable customers to use partner ground stations to ingest data in Azure using those ground stations. If you are interested in becoming a ground station partner, please contact us.
-
A contact is time-reserved for a customer at an Orbital ground station to communicate with the customer’s satellite during that time window.
-
Orbital can be used to schedule contacts with Non-Geostationary Earth Orbit satellites (NGSO), which include Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites.
-
It’s easy to use Azure Orbital with other Azure services to process and store satellite-originated data, either in the region local to each Azure Orbital antenna or in another Azure region (using Azure’s global backbone network). Data is security delivered to the customer’s virtual network and the customer can store it or send it from there to any Azure service including Azure Storage for storing as blobs or files or in any other format.