AWS Looks To Space With New Ground Station Cloud Service

Amazon Web Services is looking to the heavens with a new cloud service intended to "democratize access to space data," AWS CEO Andy Jassy said Tuesday at his company's re:Invent conference.AWS Ground Station, an on-demand satellite communications and data ingestion service for private space companies and government space agencies, will change how those entities explore earth from space, Jassy said.The world's first fully managed Ground Station-as-a-Service, Jassy said, was born from the input of AWS customers that rely on processing satellite data. What you find, and what these customers tell us all the time, is it's not so simple dealing with satellites if you want to upload and download data," Jassy said.That process, called uplinking and downlinking in satellite lingo, requires sophisticated ground stations powered by advanced software and workflows, he said.