Amazon Web Services (AWS) has entered the space services market, announcing a cloud service for satellite operators.
AWS CEO Andy Jassy unveiled the service, AWS Ground Station, at the company's annual conference, re:Invent, in Las Vegas.
Jassy told a media briefing that AWS Ground Station is "the world's first fully managed global ground station-as-a-service".
"It's a set of ground stations and antennas located all over the world, in very close proximity, and frequently right on the same grounds as our global infrastructure regions. It gives customers on-demand access to these ground stations with no need to lease them upfront, no need to try to build them or buy them. You can lease them and pay for it by the minute," Jassy said.
With plans for a network of 12 antenna ground stations in AWS regions around the world, AWS says its customers will be able to download, process, store, analyse and act upon satellite data quicker with substantial cost savings.
"Satellite data is incredibly useful for building a wide range of important applications, but it is super-complex and expensive to build and operate the infrastructure needed to do so. A few years back, our customers asked us if we could remove that cost and complexity, and the more we thought about it, the more we realised that AWS with its global footprint was uniquely positioned to solve this challenge," said Charlie Bell, senior VP at AWS.
"Today, we are giving satellite customers the ability to dynamically scale their ground station antenna use based on actual need. They will be able to ingest data straight into AWS, where they can securely store, analyse and transmit products to their customers without needing to worry about building all of the infrastructure themselves," he added.
Jassy said customers can save up to 80% of their ground station costs by paying for antenna access time on demand, and they can rely on AWS's global footprint of ground stations to downlink data when and where they need it.
As of this week, AWS has a pair of ground stations and will have 12 in operation by mid-2019. Jassy showed a map of the planned locations for the ground stations with South Africa among those highlighted, alluding to the fact that a ground station will likely be located close to the group's planned data centre in Cape Town.
Last month, AWS announced plans to bring its data centres to South Africa, opening an infrastructure region in SA in the first half of 2020. It said the new AWS Africa (Cape Town) region will consist of three availability zones.
AWS says satellites are being used by more and more businesses, universities and governments for a variety of applications, including weather forecasting, surface imaging and communications.
One of the use cases highlighted for the new satellite service was for when natural disasters strike. AWS said during natural disasters, downlinked imagery data can be rapidly analysed to identify survivors, assess structural damages, and rapidly stream this data to first responders and rescue teams. Analytics and machine learning can be applied to this data to identify the safest exit routes and best locations for temporary shelters and emergency medical facilities.
A few initial customers, including DigitalGlobe, BlackSky, Spire, Capella Space, Open Cosmos and HawkEye 360, are already accessing the antennas through a preview which started on 27 November.
Joining forces
Rick Ambrose, executive VP at Lockheed Martin Space, also spoke at the press briefing, announcing a strategic collaboration to integrate the new AWS Ground Station service with Lockheed Martin's new Virtual Resilient Ground (Verge) antenna network.
The collaboration will allow for a network of low-cost ground-based antennas, developed by Lockheed Martin, which will help capture satellite data and connect into the AWS network.
"Our collaboration with AWS allows us to deliver robust ground communications that will unlock new benefits for environmental research, scientific studies, security operations and real-time news media. In time, with satellites built to take full advantage of the distributed Verge network, AWS and Lockheed Martin expect to see customers develop surprising new capabilities using the service," Ambrose said.
Lockheed Martin Verge is now available in private beta for customers with satellites that support S-band frequencies and can downlink in the Denver, Colorado area. The company says general availability and expansion to the higher frequency X-band will be announced in the future.
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