
AWS Ground Station - leoh
https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/
======
endymi0n
This was sufficiently close in timing that I wasn't sure for a moment whether
this was just an early caught April Fools.

Then again, the more I think about it, the more this makes sense. Satellite
business is hard and capital intensive enough as it is, for starters in the
micro-satellite business it would be absolutely prohibitive to run their own
hardware just to receive those signals.

~~~
yongjik
They do have some impressive "I didn't know anyone would need that!" services.
I also love this one:

[https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/](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. (...)

~~~
jsolson
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 _completely_ inaccessible. Given that 100PB of data will cost you
$400k/mo in storage costs on AWS Glacier (before the discounts that you'll
obviously negotiate for), even relatively remote locations become "accessible"
for 100 Gbps+ fiber or microwave connectivity, and _very_ remote locations for
tens of Gbps. The Snowmobile itself is only 1 Tb/s, so if you think you're
going to save time this work, consider how long it takes to move it to you and
then move it to an AWS facility versus the time it takes to fill it.

I don't get where this is the right call for _any_ customers, even as a one-
off. I'd love it if someone from AWS could tell me where my math is off on
this.

~~~
mike_d
There is your first mistake: thinking the customer wants to solve the problem
in a a good or cost-effective way.

Snowmobile was built because a pre-sales engineer sarcastically said backing
up a truck full of hard drives to a customers datacenter would be the fastest
way to import X PB of data. It's probably loading from a tape silo and spent
18 months at the customer site.

~~~
milesward
No, it was built because a solutions architect sat next to a film producer on
a plane and talked about how to solve for his unique needs.

~~~
jsolson
Miles, I can't tell if you're messing with me or just stating what actually
happened :)

------
d_silin
We also can offer you an actual satellite for rent, starting 2021. Have a look
at [https://www.exodusorbitals.com](https://www.exodusorbitals.com)

~~~
Uehreka
I have no use for this right now but will totally file it away in the back of
my head for later. My first question would be: If I want to run code on one of
your satellites, do I have to place an order for a server to be added to the
payload of a future launch vehicle, or do you just launch satellites with
servers running on them and then rent out compute/instrument time on a per
hour basis?

~~~
d_silin
You do "git commit" and we will deploy your code on our satellite, that's it.
Similar to Heroku model.

------
elkos
If you are interested in an open satellite ground-station network, with 330+
ground-station you may want to check out SatNOGS.
[https://satnogs.org](https://satnogs.org)

The SatNOGS Network (https//network.satnogs.org) collects data from hundreds
of satellites through hundreds of stations globally. More details on the
satellites we monitor are on our satellite
database([https://db.satnogs.org](https://db.satnogs.org)). In some cases we
are able to visualize the teremetry data on our grafana
dashboards([https://dashboard.satnogs.org](https://dashboard.satnogs.org))

If you are interested in participating on our community, want info to build
you own ground-station or get your own equipment on-line don't hesitate to
check our wiki([https://wiki.satnogs.org](https://wiki.satnogs.org))

disclaimer: I'm a member of the board of Libre Space
Foundation([https://libre.space](https://libre.space)) the non-profit
organization developing and operating SatNOGS.

~~~
myself248
That was my first thought, "oh, it's a commercial satnogs".

Which I suppose proves it's a good idea. :)

------
SergeAx
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.

~~~
MAGZine
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.

~~~
thspimpolds
That would not be done on Ground Station, at least in standard regions. Once
you hit that level, you are into at least the Gov region.

That being said, those agencies already have huge ground stations at their
disposal run by NASA and other "groups". They don't need this service, they
would ingest them over NIPRNet or SIPRNet directly into AWS Gov or AWS Gov
Secret for processing.

------
soheil
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."

~~~
jsjohnst
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?

------
keithyjohnson
Thank god I now have an easy way to communicate with all my satellites.

~~~
garmaine
You joke. But maybe you’ve never considered what satellite data applications
you could have written because it wasn’t easy to do in the past?

~~~
sdegutis
True enough for me at least. But now that I have thought about it, I yet
remain of GPs opinion.

------
mkchoi212
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?

~~~
ahsima1
Not really, that's the bandwidth of an average mid-end SDR like LimeSDR(300$)
or BladeRF(500$)

~~~
thoraway1010
I have never heard of a LimeSDR putting out a 54Mhz wide signal for broadcast.
Can you describe how you are configuring things?

~~~
ahsima1
Haven't worked with LimeSDR myself, but here's the paper that suggests that
it's possible
[https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2117/119623/memor...](https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2117/119623/memoria.pdf)

------
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...](https://spacenews.com/amazon-lockheed-venture-casts-shadow-on-
ground-station-startups/)

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

[3] [https://blog.satsearch.co/2019-09-25-ground-station-
service-...](https://blog.satsearch.co/2019-09-25-ground-station-service-
providers-an-overview-of-telemetry-and-telecommand-communication-services-and-
networks-for-small-satellites)

[4] [https://blog.satsearch.co/2020-01-22-optical-
communications-...](https://blog.satsearch.co/2020-01-22-optical-
communications-for-small-satellites-and-cubesats-product-roundup)

Edit: Added/updated references

------
jvanderbot
Talk by Tom Soderstrom[1] of JPL on this from December 19. They announced a
partnership last year for various things, including downlink of high
definition video from the ISS. [2]

1\. Tom is part of the office of information technology office at JPL 2\.
[https://www.geekwire.com/2019/amazon-web-services-nasa-
team-...](https://www.geekwire.com/2019/amazon-web-services-nasa-team-stream-
video-space-via-cloud/)

------
flicker-rate
> 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.

Does anyone know how to get a NORAD ID?

~~~
d_silin
Launch a satellite, obviously. But you can look up existing ones at
[http://celestrak.com](http://celestrak.com)

------
dbbbbbbbb
I wonder if this is related to Amazons Project Kuiper satellite broadband
constellation, would make sense for them to be building out their ground
station capabilities.

~~~
carlio
Probably more likely an offshoot or requirement from Blue Origin.

~~~
FPGAhacker
More likely Kuiper.

------
NickNameNick
Wasn't this announced last year?

~~~
jeffbarr
Yes it was: [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-ground-station-ready-
to...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-ground-station-ready-to-ingest-
process-satellite-data/)

------
threeio
Or you could use something like Satnogs.org ;)

~~~
donkey-hotei
Thank you.

------
o_____________o
> 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?

~~~
jrockway
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.

~~~
monocasa
Surveillance satellites aren't normally in geostationary orbits either, as
that's too far away for the optics. Your deltav comment alludes to it. They
seem to be into highly elliptical orbits.

~~~
birdyrooster
You would need an insane amount of LEO satellites in order to get a feed which
was continuous. I don't even know how to start doing the maths on this one.

~~~
monocasa
Well, you're not going to be able to make out a house from 100x farther away
either.

Thanks to Trump's inability to not tweet anything he sees, we know that Block
4 KH-11 satellites have a 10cm/pixel about standard (they're in an elliptical
orbit, but they use which ever is closest at the time). So we're looking at a
10M/pixel in geostationary orbit, assuming you can get the same optics that
NROL was shipping up as late as 2013.

~~~
tomcam
> Thanks to Trump's inability to not tweet anything he sees

If there’s one thing I hate about that guy, it’s his being the most
transparent presidency in history.

~~~
monocasa
His actions are sort of the worst of both worlds here. On one hand leaking
information that's only useful to geopolitical adversaries (probably because
he didn't understand the implications of tweeting stuff like that), and on the
other hand being a new bar for destruction of public records when it comes to
decisions made by the administration (somehow even beating out the Obama
administration).

[https://www.democracynow.org/2020/2/6/national_archives_reco...](https://www.democracynow.org/2020/2/6/national_archives_record_retention_matthew_connelly)

[https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/10/trump-papers-
filin...](https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/10/trump-papers-filing-
system-635164)

It'd be a huge stretch to call it "the most transparent presidency in
history".

~~~
mopsi
> _On one hand leaking information that 's only useful to geopolitical
> adversaries_

What did he leak? From what I can tell, the photo merely confirmed what was
already a reasonable educated guess.

~~~
monocasa
The resolution of the optics.

~~~
mopsi
Why do you think it was a secret to anyone? Any amateur astronomer can figure
it out from mirror size and orbital parameters.

A 1968 NASA publication (sold for $3.00) discusses various limitations,
concluding: "The telescope objective for best resolution, as viewed from a
satellite at an altitude of 320 kilometers, requires a diameter of about 1.6
meters to resolve a 12-centimeter radius"
[https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/196900...](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19690003603.pdf)

That approximately 10 cm resolution has always been a resonable guess of the
capabilities of best spy satellites. Trump's tweet surprised no-one. It
confirmed what has always been thought to be true.

------
fergbrain
Could this be used for downlink only? For example, to pull down NOAA satellite
data?

~~~
mdszy
I'm like 90% sure it would be cheaper to just build your own antenna and an
RTL-SDR setup to do that sort of thing yourself. There's no way it's cost
effective for that.

~~~
curiousgal
Wait, shouldn't there be some sort of authentication step? The only barrier to
communicating with satellites is the equipment?!

~~~
mdszy
Not with the example given of NOAA satellites. Those simply broadcast data on
regular intervals. If you had to authenticate, can you imagine a single
satellite dealing with all the traffic of uplink/downlink required for
authentication? It simply wouldn't work or maky any sense.

This is not true for all satellites, obviously. There are private ones that
use encrypted communications, but weather satellites can be easily used if you
have the proper antenna and equipment setup to do so.

------
cek
Kindel's 3rd Law[1] – Amazon will enter every existing business, channel, and
market. If said business, channel, or market doesn’t already exist, Amazon
will try to invent it.

[1] [https://ceklog.kindel.com/2020/03/30/kindels-3rd-
law/](https://ceklog.kindel.com/2020/03/30/kindels-3rd-law/)

------
organicfigs
I'm getting jealous. After a career on the software side of communications
(r&d in ble and 4g) I left for the healthcare industry for many reasons but
mainly driven by the fact the projects were so monotone. Had I been able to
apply to work for a project like this, I surely would have enjoyed staying
around longer.

------
canada_dry
Having just finished reading this story
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22718330](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22718330)
the author might want to check out setting up several AWS ground stations. I
suspect the cost could be out-of-this-world.

------
anuraaga
Used to work at a startup aiming to create a similar type of network. AWS
joining was refreshing for validating the market and providing a big target to
work against.

AWS / Lockheed made a good call with phased array antennas (SpaceX too on the
satellite side). Can't scale to many different users if your ground stations
can only serve one satellite at a time, similar for a satellite providing
internet. I suspect there might still be challenges getting enough gain for
high bandwidth, but I'm sure it'll improve with better tech. A dish is just
physically stuck pointing at one angle.

------
grenoire
Honestly, this is simply sci-fi to me. The fact that we have companies
providing satellite communication infrastructure, just extremely futuristic.
Am I just too slow with the catching up?

~~~
tekno45
i mean we have been getting porn from space since like the 80's right?

~~~
grenoire
Truly miraculous!

------
bmy78
So where’s the free tier?

------
jcrites
Previously discussed on HN (Nov 27, 2018):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18546272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18546272)

------
neosat
It's easy to miss the data processing and storage story. It potentially sounds
like a fascinating story of vertically integrating to make your processing,
cloud storage, data management (of huge amounts of data) more attractive
compared to competition. Also the companies/organizations that this will be
interesting to (think defence) are likely to have large overall budget for
other cloud services. Well played Amazon!

------
dzhiurgis
A bit of a tangent, but how feasible is it for Starlink to crowdsource their
ground stations? Let people contribute to the constellation by putting up
antennas on top of their fiber connections (perhaps via solar roofs).

I think hard thing about Spacex is gonna be all the legalities across the
planet of establishing an ISP. In some places it's demonopolised, but in some
seems it might require to put up their own network.

------
anfractuosity
I recall looking at this a while ago, but I couldn't seem to find what kind of
RF hardware amazon is using, is there any information on that?

~~~
kartikkumar
It's leveraging Lockheed technology [1].

[1] [https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-
us/products/verge.html](https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-
us/products/verge.html)

~~~
anfractuosity
Thanks a lot! Will give that a watch.

------
fakturk
I think this is the real SaaS (Satellite as a Service ) o.O

~~~
fakturk
and next service come as a FaaS (Fusion Reactor as a Service), you can produce
your own power and pay as you use it =D

------
bluetwo
Use it with this? [https://agi.com/satellite-ar](https://agi.com/satellite-ar)

------
sabujp
what i'd use it for:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/stock-v...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/stock-
value-satellite-images-investing/586009/)

------
schappim
Where does one get the satellite to rent?

~~~
d_silin
Here to help! Sign up a contract with us, and we'll give you a satellite to
rent.

~~~
dominotw
who are you?

~~~
ExodusOrbitals1
We are [https://www.exodusorbitals.com](https://www.exodusorbitals.com)

~~~
dominotw
maybe add it to you profile. thank you.

------
social_quotient
How might this impact hedge funds and equity trading strategies? They
specifically mention parking lots which I interpreted as gaining sales metrics
and throughput data on businesses.

~~~
nine_k
Aren't such shots form orbit already available from various commercial
satellites? Likely they are already used.

------
pyuser583
Thought they’ve been doing this for a while?

------
gvalente
Probably the only costumer is Elon Musk

------
thekhatribharat
previously on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20991730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20991730)

