AWS Ground Station Specialized2019年〜
A managed service that provides satellite ground station infrastructure as a service
What It Does
AWS Ground Station provides the ground station infrastructure needed for satellite communication as a managed service. Using AWS ground station antennas located worldwide, it performs satellite data downlink (reception) and uplink (transmission), and received data can be processed directly on EC2 instances.
Use Cases
It is used for receiving and processing image data from Earth observation satellites, acquiring weather satellite data, sending commands to satellites, and collecting space situational awareness (SSA) data.
Everyday Analogy
Think of it like renting satellite antennas. Instead of building and maintaining your own massive dish antenna (ground station), you rent antennas around the world for just the time you need to communicate with satellites.
What Is Ground Station?
AWS Ground Station provides satellite communication ground station infrastructure as a cloud service. Traditionally, receiving satellite data required building ground stations costing millions of dollars, but with Ground Station you can communicate with satellites on a per-minute pay-as-you-go basis. Received data is delivered directly to a VPC in an AWS region.
Contacts and Data Processing
Communication sessions with satellites are called contacts. Available time windows are displayed based on satellite orbits, and you reserve contacts. Received data is streamed to EC2 instances, enabling real-time processing using AWS services like S3 storage and SageMaker image analysis. For organizing concepts and techniques around contacts and data processing, books on Amazon are a handy resource.
Getting Started
Configure satellite parameters (frequency, bandwidth, etc.) in the Ground Station console and specify the EC2 instance for data delivery. Check available contact time windows and make a reservation, and communication with the satellite starts automatically at the scheduled time.
Things to Watch Out For
- Pricing is per-minute based on contact time. Available time windows are limited by satellite orbits
- Satellite operation licenses and frequency usage permits must be obtained by the user
