How can the satellite communication and larger space industry improve operation efficiency, while remaining competitive? Embracing the cloud may be the answer.

The Satcoms Innovation Group (SIG) hosted a webinar titled “Adapting to the Cloud,” exploring the tools already available for creating a virtualized network, and how the space industry can integrate cloud workflows within its existing satcom operations. The panel consisted of Integrasys CEO Alvaro Sanchez, Intelsat VP and General Manager of Media Bill O’Hara, and Kratos Defense Director of RF Products Paul Isaac.

The webinar pulled from concepts discussed in NSR’s Cloud Computing Via Satellite report, which tackles the “cloudification” of the satellite value chain. Within the next decade, the report forecasted $16 billion in cumulative revenue opportunity for cloud-based services in the space industry.

Compared to other market segments NSR studied, the delivery of cloud service via satellite represented a substantially larger revenue potential valued in 2019 to be $200 million, while in 2029, it is expected to reach $1.8 billion. Sanchez expanded upon this during the webinar, saying that “cloud is one of the best platforms to provide services … there are a wide range of layers where you can build software, monitor capacity and spectrum, and you can automate a lot of things.”

When talking about Intelsat’s connectivity partnership with Microsoft, O’Hara said that the company’s decision to adapt to the cloud was “actually more symptomatic of our feeling that a critical mass of scale had been achieved and customers needed these types of cloud services capabilities.”

O’Hara then explained the business justification: “Seeing the type of scale that had been achieved by our cloud service providers, in a subset of the total global telecom market, was what pushed us over to understand that this needed to be a very strategic part of [Intelsat’s] roadmap.”

Earth observation data downlink was the next biggest market segment for forecasted revenue potential, according to NSR. Isaac is an advocate of moving to the Ground-Station-as-a-Service (GSaaS) model, where antenna networks are remotely controlled and managed. During the webinar, he explained that EO needs information processed in a way “that is most cost effective, utilizing a scalable ground network coupled with cloud technologies. The traditional method is where each earth observation company would build out their own dedicated ground station, and the raw data was moved over less-than-optimal data links, to be processed at the customer’s facility using their own computers.”

Isaac continued: “The new [cloud] offerings from Amazon and Microsoft position the antennas at the data centers, allowing for raw compute to be available to process information directly on the cloud infrastructure. Then, users can retrieve the images already processed. So contrary to the traditional dedicated assets, using the antennas at the data center can achieve a wider range of missions with greater utilization, for more people.”

NSR’s report also explained that while geospatial analytics revenues are predicted to be driven by business model evolution and orbital infrastructure revenue may be driven by technology evolution trends, these segments will probably remain smaller than the others discussed.

Regardless of the market segment, an efficient workflow is key. In wrapping up the panel discussion, Sanchez explained characteristics of the ideal future satellite workflow: “automated, no human errors, less interference and well mitigated, as well as a lighter, more OPEX-driven industry.” According to SIG’s webinar and NSR’s report, adapting to the cloud could help the space industry get there.

For more related webinars from Satcoms Innovation Group, take a look here. To learn more about the space industry’s growing cloud computing activity, read NSR’s Cloud Computing Via Satellite report here.