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Holy wow, it never occurred to me that there were enough organizations launching satellites to warrant creating a managed service to support it.
There isn't. This is some VP's pet project .
This was released by AWS in 2018 with a lot of discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18546272 In contrast, Azure's orbital data is in "preview" in 2021 with little discussion: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=azure+orbital
it is fashionable to dislike Microsoft and has been for most of Microsoft's life.
Holy wow, it never occurred to me that there were enough organizations launching satellites to warrant creating a managed service to support it.
There isn't. This is some VP's pet project .
0: https://blog.maxar.com/earth-intelligence/2018/sending-data-... (posted the same day Ground Station was launched in 2018)
This was released by AWS in 2018 with a lot of discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18546272 In contrast, Azure's orbital data is in "preview" in 2021 with little discussion: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=azure+orbital
yeah unfortunately this site has a lot of AWS fans and relatively few Azure fans. it is fashionable to dislike Microsoft and has been for most of Microsoft's life.
I don't see a lot of "fans" of specific cloud services. They are each flawed in different ways.
Microsoft gets bashed in the context of open source. In the context of running a cloud, I've only ever seen them praised for actually hiring customer support staff.
I have been curious about this service for a while but the landing page is very scant on technical details about how it actually works. - Is it an EC2 instance with an SDR attached? What’s the software setup? Is it compatible with GNUradio? - What are the the antenna RX gain(s)? - What TX power can be used? Edit: I found this presentation [1] which has some additional details. It does seem to be SDR based but I can’t…
All other solutions for streaming the data seem vendor specific to their hardware and software.
When AWS Ground Station launched I looked into their terms of service, hoping to be able to rent some time on their big dish to receive images from weather satellites. But no, you needed to own the satellite in question, not just have the keplerian elements for pointing at it and then demodulating the unencrypted, freely broadcast images from it. But no. Gota own the sat.
I wonder if that has changed.
But I can understand why. It's not like you want to run a SIGINT-As-A-Service platform that everybody with a credit card and maybe a Delaware corparation can use.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do I need the agreemnent? I would have figured that is what is being offered here, no? Like AWS Globlal Beaming Inc would have done all that and I would just be beaming data under their existing agreement and just complying, no?
In my experience the communications related paperwork is a prerequisite for the paperwork to actually launch your satellite. Every single satellite (or constellation of identical satellites) has to have its own “internationally coordinated” set of paperwork, some of which may block you getting the information Amazon needs (depending on the regulatory environment of your country). The radio regulations are a real head…
Thanks for details. What do you mean, would you elaborate please?
A big part of this service is AWS helping you navigate the paperwork minefield that is involved with beaming data down from space. You need agreements with the FCC equivalent in all the countries that you’ll be beaming data down to. After that you’re basically renting fractional time on Amazon’s equipment for sending and receiving data via a global network of ground stations. On the space portion, companies often ren…
AWS does eliminate the capex of setting up your own antennas all over the world. If you just want to downlink from your satellite, radiating into another country's borders is possible as long as that country did not object/request coordination with the satellite/ITU filing.
Some countries require receive-only earth stations (which is any antenna/terminal that receives a signal from a satellite) to be licensed, but many do not. AWS would eliminate that particular set of paperwork, but that's really not that much paperwork compared to ITU regulations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yeah unfortunately this site has a lot of AWS fans and relatively few Azure fans. it is fashionable to dislike Microsoft and has been for most of Microsoft's life.
Bit unprovoked wouldn't you say? I don't see a lot of "fans" of specific cloud services. They are each flawed in different ways. Microsoft gets bashed in the context of open source. In the context of running a cloud, I've only ever seen them praised for actually hiring customer support staff.
There are quite a few unique applications for geospatial data (imagery especially) that can return quite a high ROI to the right parties.