SpaceX And Google Cloud Partnership For Secure Starlink Services
Recently Elon Musk mentioned about the difficulty of delivering services to million users.

As SpaceX received half a million orders, they are preparing to provide services to 5 million users. Providing secure Internet connectivity is a challenge. With the Google Cloud alliance, they plan to locate secure Starlink ground stations within the data center properties of Google.

Working together

Last week the companies announced their partnership. This includes everything from delivering data, cloud services, and applications for customers. In addition, Starling’s high-speed broadband Internet connectivity everywhere around the globe would bring an extraordinary product. 

With this alliance,  SpaceX is to start to locate ingredients within the Google Datacenter, where Starlink ground stations are located. With the recent launch of Starlink 27, SpaceX has more than 1600 satellites. 

They aim to deliver low-latency and reliable delivery of data at different locations. Aiming to be a global Internet service, the company further plans to focus on remote and rural areas. 

SpaceX will install ground stations within Google’s data centers for its #Starlink broadband satellites under a new cloud partnership. They expect to provide new capabilities for @googlecloud customers in the second half of 2021: https://t.co/ms2LjrZDHL pic.twitter.com/2ZiZWjDh5s

— SpaceNews (@SpaceNews_Inc) May 13, 2021

Network edge

As SpaceX recently received permissions to launch in lower orbits, their last two launches were launched into lower orbits. Starlink 26 and Starlink 27, launched 60 and 52 satellites into space respectively. 

Senior Vice president, Infrastructure at Google, Urs Hölzle says, “Applications and services running in the cloud can be transformative for organizations, whether they’re operating in a highly networked or remote environment. We are delighted to partner with SpaceX to ensure that organizations with distributed footprints have seamless, secure, and fast access to critical applications and services they need to keep their teams up and running.” 

This resulting service is expected to start by the second half of 2021 as mentioned on the Google Cloud website.

Technology used

The eyeing cloud services are to be used with artificial intelligence and machine learning. Such advanced technology is to make decisions about the dataset parts which are to be sent to Earth. It is said that these can reduce the bandwidth needs of the computer services. 

Google already spent $900 million on SpaceX back in 2015. However, SpaceX now faces challenges as they start providing services. This resulted in another alliance with Google Cloud. 

SpaceX president and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said, “Combining Starlink’s high-speed, low latency bored with Google’s infrastructure and capabilities provides global organizations with the secure and fast connection that modern organizations expect. We are proud to work with Google to deliver this access to businesses, public sector organizations, and many other groups operating around the world.” 

Interestingly, Google’s competitors Microsoft also signed a deal for cloud services with SpaceX.