AWS joins Lockheed Martin to help decode massive satellite data

Las Vegas: Betting big on the lucrative space data market, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin have announced a strategic collaboration to integrate the new AWS Ground Station service with Lockheed Martin's new Verge antenna network.

With this integration, customers using AWS Ground Station gain the ability to download data from multiple satellites at the same time and to continue downloading data even when unplanned outages like a weather event impact parts of the network.

Both Lockheed Martin "Verge" and AWS Ground Station customers can now integrate satellite data with the rich portfolio of AWS services, including compute, storage, analytic and machine learning.

"There is so much data in space. With this partnership, the world will be able to make sense of data from thousands of satellites orbiting the earth, including Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, which are ideal for collecting data for earth observation," AWS CEO Andy Jassy told reporters at the company's flagship ReInvent 2018 event here on Tuesday.

"Together, AWS and Lockheed Martin are providing satellite operators increased flexibility, resiliency and scale in a complete connectivity solution, ground architecture, and cloud environment for integrated satellite and data management operations," added Rick Ambrose, Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin Space.

The collaboration with AWS will allow Lockheed Martin to deliver robust ground communications that will unlock new benefits for environmental research, scientific studies, security operations, and real-time news media.

"AWS and Lockheed Martin have a long, deep relationship and over the past several years it's become apparent that together we could bring greater capabilities to our public sector and commercial customers," said Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector for AWS.

AWS Ground Station antennas are co-located with 19 AWS Regions globally, providing the customers low-latency, local access to other AWS services to process and store this data.