Tag: aerospace and satellite

I recently had the opportunity to record the keynote for this year’s AWS Public Sector Summit Online. This year’s keynote theme is “Inspiration Everywhere,” and I can’t wait to share a number of inspiring stories and examples from our customers with you when the keynote airs on April 15. What unites all of the stories is a commitment to achieving mission outcomes with AWS and cloud computing. And while we’ll spend some time talking about the technology, I’ll also share with you the organizational changes that mission owners can drive, today, to move fast, be responsive, and maximize the impact of limited resources.

As the global aerospace and satellite industry enters a new age, leveraging the power of startups will drive innovation and improve accessibility to space data. AWS understands the importance of creating and nurturing startup communities, and today, we are proud to announce the launch of the AWS Space Accelerator. The AWS Space Accelerator is a four-week business support program that is open to space startups seeking to use AWS to help solve the biggest challenges in the space industry. Applications are open today and proposals are due by April 21, 2021.

AWS is helping NASA JPL reach an inaugural and innovative milestone in deep space exploration. On Thursday, February 18, NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover landed on Mars, after its 7-month, 300-million-mile journey from Earth. This is the first planetary NASA mission, with mission-critical communication and transfer of telemetry data in the cloud. During Perseverance’s mission on Mars, the science and engineering data will be processed and hosted in AWS, enabling the Mars 2020 mission to benefit from the scalability, agility, and reliability of the cloud.

On February 9, a new object successfully began to orbit Mars: an uncrewed spacecraft called the Hope Probe. The mission has already returned the first image of Mars, taken by Hope’s Emirates eXploration Imager from an altitude of 24,700 km. Led by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), the Hope Probe is the first interplanetary mission for the United Arab Emirates, the fifth country in history to reach the red planet. It will also be the first spacecraft to capture a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere and its layers during different times of the day and different seasons for one complete Martian year. Once data transmitted by the Hope Probe reaches the scientific teams on Earth, MBRSC will use AWS advanced technologies to process and analyze the vast amounts of data and imagery to help researchers better understand the Martian atmosphere and its layers.