AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites • Hacker News Board

Re: AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites

#71

Post by mikepurvis » Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #50

pilsetnieks wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious - what would be a good use for a generic cubesat with average-ish components, like cameras, sensors, radios, etc. - nothing custom made and overly specialized? Especially considering the cost.

I would guess you'd have a relay for any data you want transferred from non-connected devices/locations, e.g. farm equipment, wind turbines, ships, etc. Also, a client-to-space-to-EC2-only VPN in a I-am-my-own-satellite ISP may have benefits. Unsure whether by "average-ish" you meant the ability to broadcast/receive ground data.

Is it really cost effective to roll your own for that kind of thing? I would have thought there were enough off the shelf satellite/m2m solutions for remote connectivity, eg https://www.orbcomm.com/en/networks/satellite

Re: AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites

#72

Post by ivankirigin » Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 10:18 PM UTC

tachion wrote: post #64

liotier wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the difficulty of dumping heat in a vacuum and the cost of orbiting huge heat exchangers, I wager that heavy computing shall remain a mostly planetary activity for quite a while longer.

Isn't rather chilly space a great cooler for anything that heats up?

The ISS has as much heat venting hardware as solar panels

Re: AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites

#73

Post by kodablah » Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 10:27 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #71

kodablah wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess you'd have a relay for any data you want transferred from non-connected devices/locations, e.g. farm equipment, wind turbines, ships, etc. Also, a client-to-space-to-EC2-only VPN in a I-am-my-own-satellite ISP may have benefits. Unsure whether by "average-ish" you meant the ability to broadcast/receive ground data.

Is it really cost effective to roll your own for that kind of thing? I would have thought there were enough off the shelf satellite/m2m solutions for remote connectivity, eg https://www.orbcomm.com/en/networks/satellite

> Is it really cost effective to roll your own for that kind of thing?

Nope, hence leveraging Amazon et al. I would consider the AWS "above the cloud" offering (as I've now dubbed it) to essentially be the same commoditized thing as what you linked. An extraterrestrial CDN with edge compute if you will.

Re: AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites

#74

Post by whatshisface » Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 10:28 PM UTC

samstave wrote: post #28

nil_pointer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar to Azure talking about developing underwater datacenters

Did you know that eric schmidt funds a deep sea drone submersible project out of alameda to map and sensor the oceans... its funded under his and his wifes foundation, but basically its a secret project to map the oceans. They want to be first to own all that data

The odds that the military already owns a lot of it (from operating submarine sonar and all of the things that come with it) are pretty high.

Re: AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites

#75

Post by fuddle » Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 10:32 PM UTC

I feel this is an early part of Jeff Bezos's plan to build out the infrastructure needed for space exploration, as he once did to power the Web with AWS.

Re: AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites

#76

Post by plopz » Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 10:42 PM UTC

Could this be used to ingest NOAAPORT?

Re: AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites

#77

Post by rdiddly » Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 10:42 PM UTC

davidstoker wrote: post #3

Very cool! Now if only I had a satellite to use it with... How much demand would there be for this type of offering?

I don't know, but this service seems like it will facilitate & stimulate development of that market.

Re: AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites

#78

Post by XnoiVeX » Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 10:43 PM UTC

cgoecknerwald wrote: post #34

Seems somewhat similar to what Descartes Labs is doing - a "data refinery that combines data from diverse sources, cleans it up and makes it ready for modeling - and a platform to upon which to build living, learning models" [1] [1] https://www.descarteslabs.com/

I know a big wind farm north west of Dallas. Descartes identifies only a few of the actual wind turbines. Is it a limited demo?

Re: AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites

#79

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 10:44 PM UTC

nil_pointer wrote: post #26

jeletonskelly wrote: post #16

Imagine Amazon building and launching satellites like space based data centers. AWS in orbit. You could provision VMs on a satellite equipped with an array of general sensors, cameras, etc.

Similar to Azure talking about developing underwater datacenters

[deleted]

Re: AWS Ground Station – Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites

#80

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 27, 2018, 10:45 PM UTC

jeletonskelly wrote: post #16

Imagine Amazon building and launching satellites like space based data centers. AWS in orbit. You could provision VMs on a satellite equipped with an array of general sensors, cameras, etc.

[deleted]