San Francisco, Sep 11 (IANS): Amazon Web Services, the Cloud-computing arm of e-commerce giant Amazon, has appointed former White House official Peter Marquez as its first-ever head of space policy.

Before joining AWS, Marquez served as Partner at Andart Global, a consulting firm with a focus on new technologies, especially outer space.

"It's been an amazing time running a company at Andart Global and now it's time for a new adventure," Marquez wrote in a post on LinkedIn this week.

"There are many exciting things happening in the space community and this is going to be awesome," he added.

Marquez was Director of Space Policy for the White House's National Security Council from 2007-2010.

In that role, he led the drafting of a US space policy document that stressed on international cooperation and discouraged development of space-based weapons, CNBC reported on Thursday.

The appointment of Marquez comes at a time when AWS is expanding its influence in the growing space industry.

The company in June announced a new unit called AWS for Aerospace and Satellite Solutions.