AWS in Orbit:  Scaling Space Safety and Agility, with Astroscale.

Summary

AWS in Orbit: Scaling Space Safety and Agility with Astroscale

Podcast: T-Minus Space Daily
Host: Maria Varmazes
Guests: Andrew Fiola (Commercial Director, Astroscale UK) and Allegra Maturingas (Senior Account Executive, AWS)
Release Date: March 31, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of AWS in Orbit, host Maria Varmazes delves into the critical collaboration between Astroscale, a leader in in-orbit servicing, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The discussion centers on how cloud computing, space technologies, and generative AI intersect to enhance space safety and operational agility. The conversation highlights the increasing complexity of satellite operations in low Earth orbit (LEO) and the necessity for robust data communication and safety measures.

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Astroscale's Mission and Achievements

Andrew Fiola provides an insightful overview of Astroscale UK's mission to establish a sustainable space economy. He emphasizes the importance of in-orbit servicing for ensuring the safety, security, and profitability of space operations.

"Ultimately what we're trying to do here is make in orbit servicing routine in the future."
— Andrew Fiola [02:09]

Astroscale UK has pioneered several groundbreaking missions aimed at debris removal and satellite servicing:

• ELSA D (End of Life Services by Astroscale - Demo): Successfully demonstrated the first private commercial capability to capture and remove space debris using a magnetic capture system. This mission marked a significant milestone in space debris management.

"We actually brought that debris with us into orbit and pushed it away from the spacecraft from the servicer vehicle and then we're able to go and collect and capture it using our magnetic capture system, which is the first time that's ever been done."
— Andrew Fiola [04:26]

• Address J Mission: Involves closely inspecting a Japanese rocket body with plans to deorbit it in future missions, showcasing Astroscale's commitment to international collaboration in space debris mitigation.

• Upcoming missions include the ELSA spacecraft targeting the removal of OneWeb satellites, marking the first instance of two commercial organizations collaborating on docking, rendezvous, and removal operations.

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Space Situational Awareness and Operational Complexity

Andrew delves into the complexities of Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and its significance in modern space operations. He explains how Astroscale's agile and maneuverable spacecraft contribute uniquely to SSA by providing high-fidelity data through onboard sensors.

"Our spacecraft are designed to move from one area to another area and do multiple servicings. And because of that and because of the sensors that we have on board, we can provide a very special piece of that puzzle to provide that sort of much better fidelity of space situational awareness as part of the bigger whole."
— Andrew Fiola [06:30]

The dynamic nature of Astroscale's operations, contrasted with traditional fixed constellation satellites, necessitates advanced ground communication infrastructure to handle unpredictable data transmission patterns and ensure mission security.

"So when they are pointing at the ground, we need to make sure that we can get data down and data up reliably and quickly."
— Andrew Fiola [09:02]

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Collaboration with AWS: Enhancing Mission Capabilities

Allegra Maturingas discusses AWS's role in supporting Astroscale's missions through advanced cloud services tailored for the aerospace and satellite sector.

"AWS stood up this industry business vertical four years ago with the sole intent of enabling customer missions in space, aerospace and defense in the satellite domain."
— Allegra Maturingas [03:47]

Key areas of collaboration include:

Ground Segment Standardization

Allegra explains the initiative to standardize Astroscale's ground segment operations, transitioning from bespoke systems to more streamlined, scalable solutions. This standardization aims to reduce manual management, enhance efficiency, and support the scaling of Astroscale's operations.

"We're trying to eliminate or at least mitigate manual management of these bespoke systems and create a standardized path moving forward so Astroscale's workforce can scale and your resources can scale as well from an efficiency standpoint."
— Allegra Maturingas [12:32]

Data Processing and Analytics

AWS facilitates the handling of vast amounts of satellite data, enabling real-time analytics and anomaly detection. This capability is crucial for optimizing mission planning and ensuring the reliability of operations.

"We're able to do data processing and analytics and just analyzing large volumes of their satellite and spacecraft data to be able to predict future anomalies or optimize mission planning."
— Allegra Maturingas [15:05]

Mission Control Integration

The integration of AWS's cloud infrastructure with Astroscale's mission control systems ensures smoother data flow, reduced latency, and enhanced mission security. This synergy supports the complex rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) that Astroscale's spacecraft perform.

"A smoother data integration between ground segment and the mission control applications we're hoping will really help Astroscale scale for the mission launch in 2026."
— Allegra Maturingas [12:50]

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Challenges and Solutions in the Partnership

The partnership between Astroscale and AWS is not without its challenges. Andrew Fiola acknowledges the initial hurdles faced while integrating novel technologies and emphasizes the importance of open and transparent collaboration to navigate these complexities.

"The relationship and the work that we've done between Astroscale and AWS, there have been hiccups along the way, but that's because we're doing something really novel and special and ultimately need to get it to routine."
— Andrew Fiola [16:34]

Key challenges include:

• Operational Reliability: Ensuring consistent and reliable data transmission amidst the dynamic movements of Astroscale's spacecraft.

• Scalability: Transitioning from ad hoc operations to standardized, scalable processes to support multiple missions efficiently.

• Cost-Effectiveness: Utilizing AWS's scalable cloud infrastructure to manage costs while enhancing operational capabilities.

Both parties are committed to addressing these challenges through continuous innovation and mutual support, fostering a collaborative environment that accelerates the commercialization of in-orbit servicing.

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Future Outlook and Goals

Looking ahead, Andrew Fiola expresses optimism about the potential for AWS to further enhance Astroscale's capabilities, particularly in managing ground segment operations more efficiently. He envisions a future where standardized cloud solutions enable Astroscale to offer reliable and economical services to a broader market, including constellation operators, defense entities, and institutional clients.

"We need to help mitigate the risk of there being collisions in space debris creations. But we all have to do it in a profitable and repeatable way."
— Andrew Fiola [15:10]

Allegra Maturingas adds that AWS aims to deepen its partnership by continually understanding and supporting Astroscale's evolving needs, fostering a synergistic relationship that drives innovation in space services.

"It creates, I would say, like a bilateral relationship and like a flywheel, really, of us understanding what point, what threshold that Astroscale needs to get at to make the services as competitive and marketable as possible."
— Allegra Maturingas [19:06]

Together, Astroscale and AWS are poised to play pivotal roles in making in-orbit servicing a routine and economically viable aspect of space operations, paving the way for a sustainable and secure space environment.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reflection on the collaborative efforts between Astroscale and AWS, highlighting the mutual benefits and the promising advancements on the horizon for space safety and operational agility. Host Maria Varmazes thanks the guests for their contributions and invites listeners to explore more resources and future episodes.

"We're on the cusp of great things here and starting to get into a position. We have a lot of work to do still. But, you know, I see how we're going to make these kinds of services routine in the not too distant future."
— Andrew Fiola [20:04]

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Additional Resources:
For more information on this episode and other episodes in the AWS In Orbit series, visit space.n2k.com.

Credits:
Produced by Alice Carruth and powered by AWS. Produced by Lara Barber, Associate Producer Liz Stokes, Mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliott Peltzman. Executive Producer Jennifer Ibin. Publisher Peter Kilby.

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Transcript

[Allegra Maturingas]

SA.

[Maria Varmazes]

Welcome to AWS in Orbit. I'm Maria Varmazes. We're working with AWS to bring you an in depth look at the transformative intersection of cloud computing, space technologies and generative AI. On AWS in Orbit, we're exploring not just what's possible, but what's meaningful in the realm of space and cloud innovation. We grapple with complex challenges and unparalleled opportunities that arise when we use space to address pressing issues right here on Earth. This is scaling space safety and agility with Astroscale. You know, we're asking a lot of the satellites in low Earth orbit. There's more and more of them practically every day. And we're making them to be more maneuverable, to dock, to receive propellant boosts, and even to one day make things while on orbit. To perform these increasingly complex tasks, we need to communicate with those satellites and send and receive large amounts of data more quickly than ever.

[Host/Interviewer]

Put it all together and you have.

[Maria Varmazes]

A fascinating technical doing lots more, lots faster in an ever crowded field, all while keeping spacecraft safe from debris and each other. So how to tackle this challenge at scale? Well, let's hear from Astroscale and AWS to walk us through how they're making it happen.

[Andrew Fiola]

I'm Andrew Faiolda. I'm the Commercial Director here at Astroscale uk. Astroscale UK is the UK entity of Astroscale. We are focused on in orbit servicing for low Earth orbit in the uk. I'm responsible for all of our business development and marketing and my background is in satellite communications, both from the space side and the ground side. So what we're doing here at Astroscale is incredibly fascinating to me. Really enjoy coming to work every day because I'm learning something new every day. But ultimately what we're trying to do here is make in orbit servicing routine in the future. So that's awesome.

[Host/Interviewer]

And I will ask you more about Astroscale's mission in just a moment, but I want to make sure I get to Alegre Zentero as well, because you are the second voice we'll be hearing in this podcast, Allegra.

[Allegra Maturingas]

So thank you. My name is Allegra Maturingis. I am a senior account executive at aws. I'm responsible for supporting a territory of customers, which I'm fortunate enough that I get to work with Astroscale globally. In doing so, within aws, I am part of the Aerospace and Satellite ibu. AWS stood up this industry business vertical four years ago with the sole intent of enabling customer missions in space, aerospace and defense in the satellite domain.

[Host/Interviewer]

Thank you both so much for those great intros and thank you so much for joining me today. Astroscale and Astroscale UK specifically, you have an incredible mission.

[Maria Varmazes]

Andrew, can you tell me a bit.

[Host/Interviewer]

About the amazing things that you all are working on?

[Andrew Fiola]

Sure. We have an amazing mission. Both Astroscale UK and Astroscale writ large, really working on how we can build a sustainable economy in space. Help Astroscale as well as our customers and people operating in space, operate safely, operate securely, and ultimately also operate profitably. We have focused to date largely on individual missions. The first of those was an Astroscale UK mission back in 2021 called Elsa D. Elsa standing for End of Life Services by Astroscale. And the D meaning demo, where we demonstrated the first private commercial capability to capture a piece of debris. Now we actually brought that debris with us into orbit and pushed it away from the spacecraft from the servicer vehicle and then we're able to go and collect and capture it using our magnetic capture system, which is the first time that's ever been done. So, yeah, it's impressive stuff. Our Japanese team is currently in the process of winding down the Address J mission where they've gone and done a very, very close insp of a Japanese rocket body which will in a subsequent mission be deorbited. It will be captured by a different Astroscale servicer and deorbited. And in the UK we have the sort of mission after that where we'll be launching another spacecraft, another Elsa spacecraft to go and capture a oneweb spacecraft and deorbit that. So that will be the first time that two commercial organizations have ever had a docking and rendezvous and removal. So there's a lot of other stuff on the plate as well with our US colleagues as well as our Japanese colleagues and us. But those are the ones that are sort of immediately on the horizon as we really look to commercialize the business.

[Host/Interviewer]

I follow Astroscale with great interest because what you all globally are doing is really truly incredible. Can you tell me a bit about, at Astroscale uk, the work that you all are doing specifically on space situational awareness?

[Andrew Fiola]

Sure. So with regard to space situational awareness, this is, and I think an adjunct of that space domain awareness. This is an area that's becoming more and more important for the industry, for defense and security as well, for people to understand the environment in which they're operating better. And so what does that mean? Today we've got ground based systems. There are also Some space based systems to image in different ways what that space domain looks like. But, but we in astroscale have our own part to play in that as well. Because of the nature of the business that we do. We have very agile spacecraft that are one, they're much closer to the operational environment, they're not on the ground, but two, they're not in a fixed constellation type of environment. Our spacecraft are designed to move from one area to another area and do multiple servicings. And because of that and because of the sensors that we have on board, we can provide a very special piece of that puzzle to provide that sort of much better fidelity of space situational awareness as part of the bigger whole.

[Host/Interviewer]

When you're describing that, Andrew, I'm imagining the complexity of supporting a mission like that. I mean, my mind is blown a little bit about that capability and just what goes into making that happen on the ground. Can you tell me a bit about that?

[Andrew Fiola]

Yeah, well, and this is where AWS comes into play as well. For the ELSA D mission, for example, we were largely using the cloud service provided by the satellite applications catapult here in the UK and then moved over to aws. That enabled us to bring a lot more of the control in house over. What we did enabled us to be more dynamic, you know, and sort of spin up and spin down infrastructure as required. So that was more, more cost effective. It also helped strengthen our disaster recovery posture as well. And like you say, one of the things particularly as we go forward is, is really important to us because of again, the sort of way we operate and the ground network infrastructure that we need. You know, we're transmitting quite a lot of information to and from the ground. And we, we need one, we need reliability, but two, because it's not necessarily predictable in the sense that most spacecraft that are orbiting today, particularly Earth Observation spacecraft, for example, are effectively always pointing down. And so the antennas that communicate with the ground are always pointing down. It's quite predictable, you know, what's happening. As we talked about from the Address J mission, for example, our spacecraft are traveling around in three dimensions, they're tumbling and the antenna arrays are sort of all over the place, pointing in different directions at different times. So when they are pointing at the ground, we need to make sure that we can get data down and data up reliably and quickly. And so that means being able to have longer pass times, for example, where we can access ground infrastructure. And that kind of reliability helps lower the latency, helps us in terms of decision making and the security of the mission. So that becomes really important in the type of sort of RPO operations, rendezvous and proximity operations that our spacecraft are doing for their bread and butter.

[Host/Interviewer]

That's fantastic. Allegra. This feels like a natural point for me to bring you in also, because Andrew just described, again, these are incredibly complex missions and the support they need from the ground stations that they're using at Astroscale. I mean, not sort of your typical what we think of, sort of like the typical satellite operations. And AWS is supporting all this. So I guess my question is sort of like, what is it like to.

[Maria Varmazes]

Be supporting a mission like that?

[Host/Interviewer]

But yeah, why don't I let you just take a stab at that one?

[Allegra Maturingas]

Yeah, and I'd also say besides it being such a novel and innovative and exciting mission, it's also a new space for cloud and seeing where cloud capabilities can have new applications for supporting an industry that's really just at the tip of branching out into so many different domains. So as I mentioned earlier, AWS stood up this aerospace and satellite business unit specifically for working with strateg younger companies like Astroscale who are pushing the limits of what's possible in space, which in turn has pushed the limits and helping us innovate on behalf of our customers to be mission partners to Astroscale. So some of the cool things that we're looking to help Astroscale with for the future mission for ELSA would be helping ground segment standardization. So what I mean by that is that right now Astroscale has a ground segment and system set up that is a bit more bespoke. What we're trying to do is eliminate or at least mitigate manual management of these bespoke systems and create a standardized path moving forward so Astra skills workforce can scale and your resources can scale as well from an efficiency standpoint. By doing that, we're hoping that that a ground segment standardization as well as integration with Astra Scale's mission control center, we can create a smoother operations path overall. Right now, Astroscale works with AWS for supporting all their mission control applications. So all the applications that are command and controlling the satellite or spacecraft object. So a smoother data integration between ground segment and the mission control applications we're hoping will really help Astra Scale scale for the mission launch in 2026.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah.

[Host/Interviewer]

Andrew, tell me about working with AWS. That's gotta be a fascinating conversation.

[Andrew Fiola]

I think, you know, Allegra hit the nail on the head when she talked about standardization. And for us this is key. There's a Lot of parts of our business today that are what I'd consider ad hoc and need to move towards standardization if we want to have a commercially profitable business in future where again, where in orbit servicing becomes routine. We're talking about missions, right. We're not talking about service lines yet. We're still proving these very novel technologies that Allegra mentioned. But that, that standardization for us will be key in terms of how we scale the business. You know, to go from being able to do, you know, one or two missions a year to be launching many missions. Missions, I say. But what I mean is services, right? What we are providing is a service for whether it's constellation operators, defense actors, institutional, we're solving problems that they have. Whether it has to do with spacecraft that have failed or perhaps in future need to be refurbished or refueled. We need to help mitigate the risk of there being collisions in space debris creations. But we all have to do it in a profitable and repeatable way. And being able to standardize as much as possible, whether it's on components, whether it's on our ground segment, whether it's on our legal frameworks, being able to move from sort of one off bespoke to standardization is how we're going to be able to get there in a profitable way. So the ground segment is a very big part of it.

[Allegra Maturingas]

Yeah. I would also say a big advantage that Astroscale and AWS have in working together is that we've supported Astroscale UK on the past two missions. So that being Address J and then also the ELSA demonstration mission. So with that data collection, it's already living in aws and now we have the advantage of being able to work together with the Astroscale team to do data processing and analytics and just analyzing large volumes of their satellite and spacecraft data to be able to predict future anomalies or optimize mission planning. And that's exactly what we're doing right now, is working with the larger aspect masterscale UK engineering team and looking at how things have been done for the past 12 to 24 months and how we want to create a better system to launch in 2026 to support Elsa.

[Host/Interviewer]

M. That's amazing. I just love that that dialogue is so open and that that information is flowing so readily between the two sort of organizations here. That's just so fascinating to hear how sort of you both are are enabling progress in the other. It's just really, really cool to hear that Astroscale is pushing the boundaries of what AWS is providing and vice versa. That's so fascinating because we are so at the precipice of getting to that point of in space servicing. We're almost there. It's just so neat to know that it feels like we're just a few years away of that becoming much more of a regular thing just to bring.

[Andrew Fiola]

It back down to earth for a minute. And I'm sure Allegro will agree. You know, it hasn't been without its challenges. The relationship and the work that we've done, you know, between astroscale and aws, there have been hiccups along the way, but that's because we're doing something really novel and special and ultimately need to get it to routine. And you don't do that without running into some bumps in the road. But I think, as you said, you know, the relationship is very open and transparent now, and I think we're starting to see the fruits of all of those efforts.

[Allegra Maturingas]

So as Andrew touched upon with the hard work that he and I and our greater organizations have put in in the past two years, really informing the US Astroscale partnership and relationship, I'm curious, Andrew, outside of the topics that our teams are actively engaged on, what are you most excited or hopeful for in AWS growing to be a stronger and bigger mission partner for astroscale?

[Andrew Fiola]

What a great question. I think from the homework that I've done and the work that I've put in with you guys, I think there's a couple of things that I can see. I see that our ground segment team are today having to spend a lot of their efforts on routine operations that ultimately I think can be better served with AWS's infrastructure itself. And then all of the things that we talked about around reduced latency, around reduced network complexity, around greater reliability of the ground segment. Ultimately, for me being responsible for business development, I need to be able to go to market with services that are economical for my customers. And the ground segment is a big component of what ultimately sort of spits out the other end as a price. I think there's an opportunity, and this is one of the things that I look forward to towards being able to rationalize the way we manage our ground segment that will make us more effective and competitive in this very nascent market where we're trying to convince people to take these services, where today they don't yet have a compelling reason to do so. And so I think AWS has a really important role to play with us towards making our services, helping us to make our services that much more reliable and efficient, but also economical.

[Allegra Maturingas]

Yeah. It creates, I would say, like a bilateral relationship and like a flywheel, really, of us understanding what point, what threshold that Astroscale needs to get at to make the services as competitive and marketable as possible to sell to commercial in the federal and government space. So it encourages a lot of collaboration in that aspect. So we understand your goals.

[Andrew Fiola]

Absolutely. Look, I think the closer we're working together, the better AWS understands our challenges. There's no reason we should hide those. Right. We want to be open with those because that's how we're going to do these things better together. And I'm convinced that we're, as you say, Maria, we're sort of on the cusp of great things here and starting to get into a position. We have a lot of work to do still. But, you know, I see how we're going to get to make these kinds of services routine in the not too distant future.

[Maria Varmazes]

And that's it for AWS in Orbit, Scaling Space Safety and agility with Astroscale. A special thanks to Andre Fiola from Astroscale and Allegra Maturingas from AWS for joining us today. For additional resources from this episode and for more episodes in the AWS In Orbit series, check out our show [e-mail] AWS this episode was produced by Alice Carruth and powered by aws. Our AWS producer is Lara Barber. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliott Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. Peter Kilby is our publisher and I'm your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.