Amazon announces the base station service 'AWS Ground Station' that anyone can easily use data acquired by artificial satellites

By Jeffrey Sullivan

Amazon Web Services (AWS) on November 27, 2018 in the United States time, in the event "AWS re: Invent 2018" held in Las Vegas, everyone can use satellite data with a metered rate system " AWS Ground Station " satellite base station service to be released. First of all, preview provision has been started, and it is expected that full-scale service will start in 2019.

AWS Ground Station - Ingest and Process Data from Orbiting Satellites | AWS News Blog
https://aws.amazon.com/jp/blogs/aws/aws-ground-station-ingest-and-process-data-from-orbiting-satellites/

Amazon Web Services launches AWS Ground Station, a cloud service for satellite operators - GeekWire
https://www.geekwire.com/2018/amazon-web-services-launches-aws-ground-station-cloud-service-designed-satellite-operators/

This service is provided by AWS in cooperation with Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. Data acquired by artificial satellites orbiting the earth's low orbit (LEO) and middle orbital (MEO) are received by low-cost antennas installed at 12 locations around the world and processed and deployed in the cloud, so that data required by the user You can provide and save on-demand, perform analytical processing and so on.

So far, in order to receive and utilize satellite data, it is necessary to install a dedicated base station, etc., and it was necessary to bear equipment cost of several hundred million yen level. Also, even when taking a method using an existing base station, many work such as making a long-term contract and individually scheduling management occurred individually. In order to solve these problems, AWS Ground Station has satellite base stations all over the world, it can receive image data taken by the satellite and use it via EC2 of AWS.

At the beginning of the service there are two base stations, AWS plans to set up base stations in 12 regions around the world in 2019. It is said that it will correspond to the region set by Amazon. By having base stations all over the world, users will be able to obtain data faster than before, and uplink data will be available as well.

The fee for users to use the service is charged in minutes. The data of the digitized satellite can be used in the following form.

· Streaming : Capture, process and save data streams with Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

· Processing : Image recognition in Amazon Rekognition and construction, education and development of machine learning model using Amazon SageMaker

· Analysis and reporting : Store processed data in Amazon Redshift in data warehouse format and query data with Amazon Athena or Amazon QuickSight

· Storage : Data storage on Amazon S3 and archiving on Amazon Glacier

At the time of service announcement, it is said that there are no artificial satellites that actually demonstrate the demo yet, but on the AWS blog, the image images at the time of use are released.

When creating an account and preparing to use it, enter the number "NORAD ID" unique to each artificial satellite, designate the terrestrial base station you want to use, the date and time etc.

It is possible to narrow down by the status of the satellite ("Available", "Scheduled", "Completed").

Select the frame you want to use ......

By clicking "Reserve", you can make a reservation for the data use of the artificial satellite which is actually circling the universe.

For general people it is a utilization of a satellite that is not so familiar, but for researchers who want to check the situation of natural disasters, people who belong to the research field, it seems to be said that it will be a service that lowers the hurdle at once. Of course, it is also a point that all services are completed within AWS.