AWS Creating New Aerospace And Satellite Solutions Unit

'Amazon is anticipating a huge increase in space-related cloud-computing contracts globally with a market size estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars,' AWS vice president Teresa Carlson told The Wall Street Journal

Amazon Web Services is launching a new Aerospace and Satellite Solutions division to increase its efforts to win military and private commercial space organizations as customers of its cloud computing infrastructure, according to a Wall Street Journal report today.

AWS vice president Teresa Carlson is expected to deliver the news this morning in her keynote address at the AWS Public Sector Summit Online.

The Seattle-based AWS, the largest cloud computing provider, is hoping to benefit from increasing government spending and civilian investments in the space race, the WSJ reported, saying NASA, the Pentagon and their largest contractors such as Lockheed Martin are seeing sizable jumps in appropriated or proposed budgets.

Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Clint Crosier, who was charged with setting up the U.S. Space Force, the newest branch of the U.S. military, will lead the division, according to the WSJ.

"Amazon is anticipating a huge increase in space-related cloud-computing contracts globally with a market size estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars," Carlson told the WSJ.

AWS has been battling in court against the U.S. Department of Defense award of the Pentagon's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contract to Microsoft last October. AWS contends that President Donald Trump exerted political influence over the award, which could be worth as much as $10 billion, due to his alleged dislike for Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of AWS parent Amazon.com and owner of The Washington Post.

This story is developing.