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AWS Ground Station

Easily control satellites and ingest data with fully managed Ground Station as a Service

Get started with AWS Ground Station

Introduction to AWS Ground Station

AWS Ground Station is a fully managed service that lets you control satellite communications, process data, and scale your operations without having to worry about building or managing your own ground station infrastructure. Satellites are used for a wide variety of use cases, including weather forecasting, surface imaging, communications, and video broadcasts. Ground stations form the core of global satellite networks.  With AWS Ground Station, you have direct access to AWS services and the AWS Global Infrastructure including a low-latency global fiber network. For example, you can use Amazon S3 to store the downloaded data, Amazon Kinesis Data Streams for managing data ingestion from satellites, and Amazon SageMaker for building custom machine learning applications that apply to your data sets. You can save up to 80% on the cost of your ground station operations by paying only for the actual antenna time used, and relying on the global footprint of ground stations to download data when and where you need it. There are no long-term commitments, and you gain the ability to rapidly scale your satellite communications on-demand when your business needs it.

Benefits

AWS Ground Station provides a global network of ground stations in close proximity to our global network of AWS infrastructure regions. With AWS Ground Station, you no longer need to worry about buying, leasing, building, scaling or managing your own satellite ground stations.
Security at AWS is the highest priority. As an AWS customer, you will benefit from facility and network architecture built to meet the requirements of the most security-sensitive organizations. AWS Ground Station provides premium data security and physical security without any additional costs.
With AWS Ground Station, you only pay for the actual antenna time you use. There are no long-term contracts, or hidden fees. With a single price, you can use any antenna in the global AWS Ground Station network.
With multiple antennas at each of our geographically diverse AWS Ground Stations you can downlink your satellite data directly into an AWS region for immediate processing. Our Ground Station scheduling interface allows you to get your data when you need it without scheduling delays or antenna conflicts.
AWS Ground Station provides satellite antennas in close proximity to AWS infrastructure regions, giving you low-latency and low-cost access to AWS services to store and process your data. This allows you to reduce data processing and analysis times for use cases like weather prediction or natural disaster imagery from hours to minutes or seconds.

Building blocks

AWS Ground Station's global network of antennas lets you communicate with your satellite multiple times per orbit. You can downlink valuable satellite data to your AWS VPC within seconds of collection while commanding your satellites to execute the next mission. Earth Observation satellite operators can now refresh their archives with high-resolution imagery on a more regular basis to enhance monitoring and change detection applications that better support industries like forest monitoring and agriculture.
Cross Region Data Delivery lets you operate multiple simultaneous contacts using AWS Ground Station’s global antenna network from a single AWS Region. This means you pay only for the minutes of antenna access without incurring an additional charge for transferring data back and forth between regions to process. Using AWS's low-latency, high-bandwidth global fiber network you can collect real time weather data to evaluate changing climate patterns around the world.
You can begin processing your satellite data within seconds of reception at the antenna system. This enables you to turn raw data into processed information or analyzed knowledge within a matter of seconds. Today, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) operators are leveraging this capability to develop intelligence for first responders to use during active search, rescue, and recovery operations.
The digital twin feature for AWS Ground Station lets you accelerate the testing and integration phase for your next mission while reducing upfront costs. With this feature, you can schedule test contacts and check configurations using virtualized ground station infrastructure. You can also leverage Digital Twin for ongoing regression testing or for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) use cases.

Capella Space

"With global coverage and secure operations, AWS Ground Station is a key component of Capella Space’s automated ordering and delivery system. Support from AWS has enabled us to build a trusted data delivery service for customers requiring timely information. Their proven infrastructure and reliable services are important pieces to fulfilling Capella’s mission to make SAR imagery more accessible, providing global transparency for our evolving planet."

Frank Backes, CEO, Capella Space

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