AURORA, Colo. — Raytheon, an RTX (NYSE: RTX) business, has formalized a strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) aimed at aggressively modernizing satellite data processing and mission control architectures through cloud-native integration.
The agreement focuses on equipping national security and commercial space customers with the ability to bypass legacy processing bottlenecks. By embedding AWS Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) services directly into the mission chain, Raytheon intends to drastically reduce the latency between data collection and actionable intelligence.
“Our customers rely on Raytheon to solve their most complex problems across space, data processing, command and control, and mission management functions,” said Erich Hernandez-Baquero, Vice President of Space Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance at Raytheon. “This collaboration with AWS empowers our teams to accelerate responsible AI innovation, increase agility while maintaining the highest levels of security, optimize resources, and strengthen systems to drive effective results for our customers.”
Pushing Compute to the Edge: A critical technical pillar of this collaboration is the integration of the AWS Outpost family of services. This infrastructure allows Raytheon to push mission management capabilities to the “tactical edge”—delivering AWS infrastructure to virtually any on-premises location. This hybrid approach is essential for modern constellation management, where bandwidth constraints often require data to be processed locally rather than backhauled to a central server.
Key operational enhancements targeted by the partnership include:
- Advanced Constellation C2: Utilizing modular, software-defined systems for dynamic task scheduling and asset coordination.
- Serverless Architectures: Leveraging scalable AWS serverless tech to rapidly integrate new capabilities without overhauling physical infrastructure.
- Generative AI Integration: Employing Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock to revolutionize software development cycles and automate complex mission operations.
“This collaboration unites the security, reliability, and higher levels of availability from AWS with Raytheon’s space systems expertise to create new possibilities for our customers in the space industry,” said David Appel, Vice President of U.S. Federal at AWS. “This relationship embodies our customer-obsessed approach, driving innovations that boost mission performance, cost efficiency, and operational agility.”
According to the companies, active programs for both government and commercial sectors are already being executed under this new framework.