AWS, Lockheed Partnership Brings Satellites Down to Earth

Amazon Web Services is teaming with satellite services provider DigitalGlobe and manufacturer Lockheed Martin on a venture to bring satellite data "down to Earth."At AWS Re:Invent here, AWS CEO Andy Jassy announced AWS Ground Station, a new service that will be housed at AWS Cloud Regions around the globe.Lockheed's contribution is called VERGE (Virtual Resilient Ground), which includes small, cube-like antennas about the size of bookshelf stereo speaker (pictured, with Lockheed Martin executive Rick Ambrose), which will be deployed at the AWS Ground Stations to communicate with satellites.AWS Ground Station is dubbed a fully managed network of ground station antennas around the world in close proximity to AWS infrastructure regions. There are two Ground Stations set up today, and 12 more will be deployed in 2019, Jassy said.