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AWS Ground Station

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Re: AWS Ground Station

#151

Post by kartikkumar »

The satellite ground station market is quite dynamic at the moment. As the data generated on-orbit continues to grow, the need for robust ground infrastructure becomes that much more important.

Ground-Station-as-a-Service (GSaaS) is something that AWS stepped into given the fact that AWS is used quite extensively for the data processing chain, so it was a logical play for them to verticalize. AWS partnered with Lockheed to build out the hardware network [1][2].

They've got some decent competition in the market. We published a round-up article of ground station providers a while back [3].

The move to higher frequencies is changing the market substantially. This year, a number of optical ground stations were supposed to be deployed, given growth of satellite terminals [4]. We'll have to see with the virus what actually ends up happening.

[1] https://spacenews.com/amazon-lockheed-venture-casts-shadow-o...

[2] https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/verge.html

[3] https://blog.satsearch.co/2019-09-25-ground-station-service-...

[4] https://blog.satsearch.co/2020-01-22-optical-communications-...

Edit: Added/updated references

Re: AWS Ground Station

#152

Post by kartikkumar »

mkchoi212 wrote: post #42

I thought this was an April fools joke once I clicked on the link. The bandwidth they are operation on (54 MHz) is ridiculous though! Truly sci-fi-ish stuff going on here. Also, did Amazon build this from scratch or did they acquire a company that had the basic infra for this kind of stuff?

Lockheed is building out the ground infrastructure network [1]

[1] https://spacenews.com/amazon-lockheed-venture-casts-shadow-o...

Re: AWS Ground Station

#154

Post by [deleted] »

xenophonf wrote: post #108
closeparen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>maybe ask them to beef up their security What's the threat model for a ground station? Interception? Sabotage? Hardware theft? Can you even sell these things on eBay?

Satellite navigation is a key strategic asset, as is any system that carries national and trans-national communications. Imagine being able to interfere with a navy's navigation, maybe not enough to stop them from getting somewhere but definitely enough to slow them down. Or imagine being able to change the position of a communications satellite, a device that is basically just dumb microwave relay---and microwave, I…

[deleted]

Re: AWS Ground Station

#155

Post by tracker1 »

xenophonf wrote: post #108
closeparen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>maybe ask them to beef up their security What's the threat model for a ground station? Interception? Sabotage? Hardware theft? Can you even sell these things on eBay?

Satellite navigation is a key strategic asset, as is any system that carries national and trans-national communications. Imagine being able to interfere with a navy's navigation, maybe not enough to stop them from getting somewhere but definitely enough to slow them down. Or imagine being able to change the position of a communications satellite, a device that is basically just dumb microwave relay---and microwave, I…

Don't really know any specifics, but I'd imagine being able to use the compromised satellites as simple rams against military satellites could be a significant risk, depending on the size of the fleet... even if not destroying a target.

Not to mention just plain destruction of bringing down a fleet of satellites.

Re: AWS Ground Station

#156

Post by tracker1 »

MAGZine wrote: post #138
SergeAx wrote: post #107

Amazon has a habit to make it's internal tools into AWS services (while still using them internally). I think it shows a tip of some space-related works inside.

to my knowledge, amazon had done a lot of satellite image processing for certain three letter agencies. this is probably related to that more than anything.

While this may well be true... more likely it's part of their logistics monitoring.

Re: AWS Ground Station

#157

Post by michaelt »

d_silin wrote: post #114
chance_state wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but what would be the use case for running code on a satellite?

A few solid cases are: - space-qualification for the satellite control software. You need to test your own flight software in space, so you use our satellite platform to run test/validation and then reuse on your own satellite. - space-based algorithm tests, such as data compression/error correction or radiation hardening through software means. Inter-satellite link protocols is also a rich field for software develop…

> Autonomy algorithms tests: for example for automatic collision avoidance software

Will you have some super hypervisor software, which can take over and recover from the consequences of any bugs in the software under test?

Re: AWS Ground Station

#158

Post by tracker1 »

jrockway wrote: post #3
o_____________o wrote: post #2

> You can use radar satellite imagery of your various business facilities such as parking lots, logistic centers, and retail stores Could this be used to monitor someone's home?

Yes. This is just the ground station, though, you would still need to put a satellite in orbit to receive messages from, however. And remember that it's somewhat expensive in terms of delta-V budget to have the satellite over someone's house exactly when you want it to be. Most people that want to spy on their neighbor will just buy a $30 spy cam with a 4G uplink.

I know that some have worked on this... but have given thought to how one could use lower power hives/swarms in order to do surveillance. Not so much for spying on neighbors but virtual tours of national parks and monuments, stitching many photos together to form 3D tour space.

High end capacitors over batteries, and a swarm where individual drones come home to charge, keeping roughly 1/3-1/2 in reserve and accounting for flight times to/from target area...

For less coverage, of course, less drones would be needed. Getting down closer to the size between a large bug and small bird's body for total size would probably be needed as well for a bit of stealth... noise is another concern. Interesting work/ideas.

Re: AWS Ground Station

#159

Post by jsjohnst »

jsolson wrote: post #137
yongjik wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do have some impressive "I didn't know anyone would need that!" services. I also love this one: https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/ > AWS Snowmobile is an Exabyte-scale data transfer service used to move extremely large amounts of data to AWS. You can transfer up to 100PB per Snowmobile, a 45-foot long ruggedized shipping container, pulled by a semi-trailer truck. (...)

I work on Google Cloud and have an obvious bias here, but having thought about this for a couple year now, this does not seem like a good or cost-effective way to move that much data. In particular if you have ~100PB of data to move and you are in a location that can be reached by a 45-foot long shipping container on a truck with access to the ~350KW of power it takes to run Snowmobile, you're clearly not somewhere _…

> even relatively remote locations become "accessible" for 100 Gbps+ fiber or microwave connectivity, and _very_ remote locations for tens of Gbps.

I’m guessing:

1. You’ve never priced out said circuits before

2. Never seen the lead times and minimum contract periods on them

3. Don’t realize in general how hard it is to actually max out circuits like that.

Shipping / freight company is generally still a preferred solution to moving very very large amounts of data even in 2020. Your own employer still ships large datasets that way too. Here’s a link from 2007:

https://royal.pingdom.com/fedex-still-faster-than-the-intern...

But from contacts I know inside Google, it’s still done regularly.

Re: AWS Ground Station

#160

Post by jsjohnst »

soheil wrote: post #121

Unfortunately looks like this is not available to almost anyone except in rare cases: "To add satellites to your account, please email aws-groundstation@amazon.com with the NORAD ID, your FCC license information, and your customer account number and someone will contact you."

You’d have both those pieces of information handily available if you had satellites in space. If you don’t have satellites in space, not target customer?
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