What is AWS Ground Station?
AWS Ground Station is a managed service for satellite communication. Instead of building and operating your own ground stations, customers use AWS’s global antenna network. Satellite data is transmitted directly to an AWS region where it can be processed with EC2, S3, and other services.
Core Features
- Global Antenna Network: Ground stations at strategic locations worldwide for maximum satellite coverage
- Direct VPC Integration: Satellite data is streamed directly into your VPC
- Flexible Scheduling: Book antenna contacts on demand without long-term commitments
- Wideband and Narrowband: Support for various frequency bands and data rates
- AWS Service Integration: Seamless connection to S3, EC2, SageMaker for data processing
Typical Use Cases
Earth Observation and Imaging
Satellite imagery is downloaded via Ground Station and stored directly in S3. ML pipelines on SageMaker analyze images for agriculture, urban planning, or environmental monitoring.
Weather Forecasting
Weather data from meteorological satellites is received in real-time and processed with AWS compute resources. Short latency between downlink and processing improves forecast models.
IoT Satellite Networks
Communication with IoT devices in remote areas without terrestrial network coverage. Ground Station receives telemetry data and sends commands to satellite constellations.
Benefits
- No investment in your own ground infrastructure
- Pay-per-minute billing for antenna contacts
- Scaling by using multiple ground stations in parallel
- Fast data access through integration with AWS regions
Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with AWS Ground Station: architecture for satellite data pipelines, integration with ML workflows for image analysis, and building real-time processing systems.