Telespazio announces support for AWS Ground Station with its cloud-based service platform ENABLE

08 April 2021 14:00

  • ENABLE helps space start-ups to accelerate remote sensing, IoT, satellite communications and early launch applications development, and supports end-of-life clean-up projects minimizing costs.
  • Digantara and NuSpace among first customers to build space applications and fully manage their satellite and missions using AWS on Telespazio’s ENABLE platform.

Telespazio Germany GmbH, a subsidiary of Telespazio – a joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%) –, a leading provider of aerospace engineering, software solutions and services and a member of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN), today announced support for AWS Ground Station within Telespazio’s cloud-based service platform for space operations ENABLE.

The collaboration provides customers with access to an expanded network of satellite ground stations, simplified satellite management, and AWS services for data processing, storage, and analysis.

“We are witnessing a convergence of space and cloud as businesses and space agencies generate more data, from more sources than ever before. This is a significant undertaking and cost driver because customers often require antennas in multiple countries to download data when and where they need it without waiting for the satellite to pass over a desired location” said Andrés Martínez, Sales Director Commercial Space, for Telespazio. “The combination of AWS and Telespazio’s ENABLE service platform helps space start-ups to minimize capital expenditures and re-target those funds to developing applications that will support many vital, exciting new missions in space.”

AWS Ground Station enables customers to downlink data and efficiently control satellite communications across multiple regions, process data, and scale operations without having to worry about building or managing their own ground station infrastructure. Telespazio’s service platform allows customers to safely plan and execute their missions both in the space and aviation domain, being flexible and scalable to any specific need. The combined technologies and services from AWS and Telespazio will therefore provide a cost effective and scalable solution that allows customers to rapidly transform large amounts of raw data into actionable intelligence, collaborate and experiment with new applications, and deliver products to market faster without buying, leasing, or maintaining complex and expensive infrastructure.

“Traditionally, organizations entering the satellite industry would have to make heavy upfront capital investments in infrastructure to support missions. The lag time between data acquisition and analysis made it difficult to accurately analyze the data in a timely manner. Now with AWS and Telespazio, customers can access a comprehensive, global mission operation service to deliver data more quickly, and rapidly customize a solution that meets their needs more efficiently and cost effectively than previously possible” said Alessandro Baronio, ENABLE Product Manager for Telespazio.

Using AWS Ground Station, Telespazio customers can immediately access AWS storage, compute, and analytics services, such as Amazon S3, to store the downloaded data; Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, for managing data ingestion from satellites; and Amazon SageMaker for building custom machine learning applications that can be applied to a wide variety of data sets. Digantara and NuSpace will be among first customers to use AWS on Telespazio’s ENABLE platform.

Digantara, an Indian space technology company establishing an in-orbit surveillance platform with global real-time earth coverage, is deploying a constellation of high-resolution nanosatellites in LEO (Low Earth Orbit) to provide predictive and robust space-based situational awareness services for satellites companies, launch companies, space insurers, space defence forces and regulators. “We have to continuously analyse huge SSA data gathered by our satellites for delivering tailored services to end-users in every business segment, all the while ensuring smooth operation of our constellation. The individual combination of Telespazio and AWS Ground Station has untangled many knots in constellation management and data management by bringing planning and execution of satellite operations as well as data handling in both ways under a single roof”, said Anirudh Sharma, CEO of Digantara.

NuSpace, a spin-off from the National University of Singapore (NUS), provides affordable global IoT (Internet of Things) connectivity to areas with limited to non-existent communication infrastructure by leveraging a constellation of IoT enabling nanosatellites. “With Telespazio’s rich experience in the space industry and their introduction of the ENABLE service platform, it will allow us to effectively manage our planned constellation of satellites and be able to scale competitively. The collaboration between Telespazio and AWS will further allow us to streamline our operations, enabling us to manage our entire IoT connectivity service on a unified platform. We are delighted about their partnership and are honoured to be part of their ecosystem!”, said Zhen Ning, CEO of NuSpace.