What if a company could get access to space to run applications or collect data

without having to build your own hardware or launch a spacecraft to orbit?

What if a company could do it for you and offer their space infrastructure as a service.

Well, that's what Start Up Loft Orbital is setting out to do with its virtual missions.

It's already running some on its satellites currently in orbit,

but the first spacecraft completely dedicated to this business model,

YAM6, will launch via SpaceX's transporter 10 mission later this quarter.

The M6 has a couple of cameras on it. It has some RF

sensors. It has an inter satellite link so it has real-time connectivity to the

ground and it has a bunch of GPS and other compute systems that allow us to run customer

software apps on board. So our business model for EM6 is almost to treat it like a

data center. We're essentially renting out capacity of both the sensors and the compute on board to

any customer who has any application they want to run. Think computing

capability for AI workloads. Alex Greenberg, the startup's co-founder and C-O-O-O-O says Microsoft is both a customer and a partner on

the M6 and others have signed on as well.

Loft is essentially selling computing sessions from space, meaning the satellite gets utilized

almost 24-7 and can generate revenue around the clock.

How is Loft making this possible?

Well, it buys standard satellite buses from vendors

like Airbus and outfits them with hardware and software quote-unquote abstraction

layers that enables a plug-and-play approach to any sensor capability that's needed.

Basically, Loft Orbital is and has been commoditizing the satellite payload process.

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