The document summarizes a presentation about AWS Ground Station. It discusses how AWS Ground Station provides managed ground stations as a service to transfer data between satellites and Earth. This allows customers to schedule ground station access on demand without large upfront costs. The presentation covers the architecture of AWS Ground Station, including antenna systems, data types, configurations, scheduling through the console, onboarding process, and pay-as-you-go pricing model.

1. P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
WASHINGTON, D C

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AWS Ground Station Overview
Nathan McGuirt
Senior Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services
S e s s i o n I D : 2 9 4 6 2 8

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Agenda
Introduction
Service overview
Example architectures
Configuration and scheduling
Console overview
Onboarding and pricing

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What is a ground
station?
Provides communication links
between Earth and satellites
Transfer commands, telemetry,
and mission data to and from
the spacecraft

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Traditional ground station challenges
Build, Lease, or Rent
Large up-front capital to build
Expensive and complex to maintain
Inelastic scaling
Opaque pricing
Scheduling conflicts and contention

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• Managed ground stations
• No long-term commitments required
• Simple, pay-as-you-go pricing – pay by the minute
• Self-service scheduling
• Close proximity to AWS Regions
• First-come, first-served scheduling
AWS Ground Station

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High-level architecture
Antenna
System
Scheduling
Antenna
control
Downlink
Uplink
AWS Security and Identity
Tracking
Digitizer /
radio
Customer VPC
EC2
Software radio /
data recovery
Self-service and automation through AWS Console and AWS APIs/SDK
Tracking Telemetry
and Control
Mission data
processing

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Physical locations
• Oregon (us-west-2) and Ohio (east-2)
launched with general availability
• 12 Ground Station locations planned
in 2019
• Close proximity to AWS Regions
• 2 or more antenna systems per
location

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Capabilities – orbits and bands
Orbits:
Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)
Bands:
X-Band - Downlink
S-Band – Uplink and Downlink
UHF – Uplink and Downlink
UHF Coming Soon

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Antenna systems
Parabolic reflector antennas
Tracking antennas (autotrack)
5.4m diameter

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Antenna systems
• X-Band
• Receive 8000-8500 MHz
• Narrowband Downlink
• Up to 54MHz, (LHCP or RHCP)
• RF over IP – Dig. IF (VITA49)
• Wideband Downlink
• Up to 500MHz, dual polarity (RHCP, LHCP)
• Demodulated and decoded data (VITA49
Extension Data)
• S-Band
• Transmit 2025-2120 MHz
• Receive 2200-2300 MHz
• Narrowband uplink and downlink
• Up to 54 MHz Bandwidth (LHCP or RHCP)
• RF over IP – Dig. IF (VITA 49)
• UHF (Coming Soon)
• Narrowband Uplink and Downlink
• Up to 54MHz Bandwidth (VP)
• RF over IP – Dig. IF (VITA 49)

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Narrowband example architecture
Customer VPC
Software Radio
(Dataflow Endpoint)
Mission Data
Processing
FEP/ Encryption
RF over IP
(VITA49 dig. IF)
TT&C
Amazon Simple
Storage Service
(Amazon S3)

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Wideband example architecture
Customer VPC
Software Radio
(Dataflow Endpoint)
TT&C
FEP/ Decryption
(Dataflow Endpoint)
FEP/
Encryption
Demodulated Bit Stream
(VITA49 Extension Data)
Mission Data
Processing
Amazon S3
Amazon DynamoDB
RF over IP
(VITA49 dig. IF)

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Possibilities
Dataflow Endpoint Instance
(Modulation/Coding)
FEP/
Encryption
Amazon S3
Mission Data
Amazon EMR Cluster
Mission Data
TT&C
Amazon Timestream
Amazon S3
Products
Amazon API
Gateway
AWS Lambda
Serverless Application
Amazon SageMaker
Customer Request
History
Automated
Tasking

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Data types and configurations
Contact
Satellite
Ground
Station
Mission
Profile
Tracking
Config
PrePass
Duration
PostPass
Duration
Minimum
Viable Contact
Duration
Dataflow Edge
Antenna
Uplink Config
Dataflow
Endpoint
Group
Dataflow Edge
Antenna Echo
Uplink Config
Dataflow
Endpoint
Group
...
Start time End Time

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Downlink and DataflowEndpoint
{
"antennaDownlinkConfig": {
"spectrumConfig": {
"bandwidth": {
"units": "MHz",
"value": 25
},
"centerFrequency”: {
"units": "MHz",
"value": 8212.5
},
"polarization": "RIGHT_HAND"
}
},
"name": "MyAntennaDownlinkConfig"
}
{
"endpointDetails": [
{
"endpoint": {
"address": {
"name": "192.168.1.100",
"port": 55888
},
"name": "DataflowEndpoint1",
},
"securityDetails": {
"roleArn": "arn:aws:iam:…:/GSEniControl",
"securityGroupIds": [
"sg-deadbeef"
],
"subnetIds": [
"subnet-abcdef12"
]
}
}
]
}

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Tracking config
{
"configData": {
"trackingConfig": {
"autotrack": ”REQUIRED"
},
},
"name": "MyTrackingConfig"
}
REQUIRED - Autotrack is required for your contacts.
PREFERRED - Autotrack is preferred for contacts, but contacts can still be executed
without autotrack.
REMOVED - No autotrack should be used for your contacts.

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Mission profile
{
"name": "MyDownlinkMissionProfile",
"contactPostPassDurationSecond": 60,
"contactPrePassDurationSeconds": 60,
"minimumViableContactDurationSeconds": 120,
"dataflowEdges": [
[
"arn:aws:groundstation:…:config/antenna-downlink/11…555",
"arn:aws:groundstation:…:config/dataflow-endpoint/21…555"
],
… <SNIP>
],
"trackingConfigArn": "arn:aws:groundstation:…:config/tracking/71…555"
}

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Console scheduling

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Onboarding
1) Customer sends NORAD ID,
transmit license, acct number to:
aws-groundstation@amazon.com
2) AWS reaches out to gather
necessary information
3) AWS completes due diligence on
satellite ownership/operation
rights
4) Both customer and AWS update
licenses
5) Customer can begin using AWS
Ground Station

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Pricing for AWS Ground Station
• Customers pay by-the-
minute for scheduled time
• Customers who purchase
yearly reserved minutes
receive discounted pricing
• Customers using reserved
minutes can schedule
further in advanced
Narrowband
( <=54MHz )
Wideband
( >54 MHz )
On
Demand
$10/min $22/min
Reserved $3/min $10/min

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AWS Ground Station – getting started
Onboarding - e-mail: aws-groundstation@amazon.com and send:
• NORAD ID
• FCC/ITU license information
• AWS Acct #
Console: https://console.aws.amazon.com/groundstation/home
User guide: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ground-
station/latest/ug/what-is-aws-ground-station.html
API Reference: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ground-
station/latest/APIReference/Welcome.html

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© 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
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“The most exciting part of our testing
work was finding out how fast we
could get data from space into
Amazon S3. The answer – 55 seconds.”
- Maxar

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Thank you!
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Nathan McGuirt
nmcguirt@amazon.com

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