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I worked at a company that with a fleet of microsatellites that also built and managed our own network of groundstations. The costs of groundstations can defini

I worked at a company that with a fleet of microsatellites that also built and managed our own network of groundstations. The costs of groundstations can definitely add up. Scouting for locations with good RF properties takes a lot of long flights, weird dealings with customs (RF equipment is questioned heavily). Then you have to find a site to host it, maybe ask them to beef up their security, construction to support your hardware once it gets above a certain size (dishes and radomes for S and X band comms), network connections and redundant network connections, and a team of people to manage and coordinate all of it. It's certainly its own undertaking and could easily be outsourced to a service with the right specs. Whether AWS's offering here will rise to meet that is yet to be seen.

closeparen 7y ago
>maybe ask them to beef up their security What's the threat model for a ground station? Interception? Sabotage? Hardware theft? Can you even sell these things on eBay?
- xenophonf 7y ago
  Satellite navigation is a key strategic asset, as is any system that carries national and trans-national communications. Imagine being able to interfere with a navy's navigation, maybe not enough to stop them from getting somewhere but definitely enough to slow them down. Or imagine being able to change the position of a communications satellite, a device that is basically just dumb microwave relay---and microwave, I'll remind you, is highly directional. Or what about getting access to the ground station's network traffic? I'll bet that even when it's encrypted, there's still useful signals intelligence to be gleaned, and when it isn't encrypted (or encrypted badly), boy howdy. Satellites and their attendant infrastructure cost billions of dollars to deploy and maintain. They are incredibly valuable targets, making it worth an attacker's while to penetrate them. This is way beyond simple vandalism or ransomware.
  - closeparen 7y ago
    I would expect ground stations that important to be on military bases, not random locations that a private company is scouting. No?
    - kube-system 7y ago
      A ground station can also point at things it's not supposed to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Midnight_broadcast_signal_intrusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Midnight_broadcast_sig...
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - tracker1 7y ago
    Don't really know any specifics, but I'd imagine being able to use the compromised satellites as simple rams against military satellites could be a significant risk, depending on the size of the fleet... even if not destroying a target. Not to mention just plain destruction of bringing down a fleet of satellites.
    - nradov 7y ago
      Very few commercial satellites carry enough maneuvering fuel to ram any military satellite. And none of them are equipped with the sensors needed for an intercept.
- deleted 7y ago
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bradknowles 7y ago
I did a six month consulting gig for Raytheon on their GPS OCX project — building the next-generation ground control systems to manage the current fleet of GPS satellites, plus the next-generation fleet of satellites. The rule at Raytheon was that Lockheed got the easy end of the job — they just had to design, build, and launch the new fleet. It was Raytheon who got the really hard end of the job, because they had to be able to seamlessly manage both the new and old fleets. I would submit that designing, building, and operating the ground control systems remains the hardest part of the job, even if you don’t have a legacy fleet of satellites that you have to manage on top of the new fleet. Think about it — when you’re doing the operations side of the house, you have to be perfect, all the time. That one time you aren’t perfect and your opsec fails, you lose. The other guys just have to be right once, and they can keep trying and trying and trying indefinitely, until they get that one time they win. That’s definitely the harder job.

closeparen 7y ago

>maybe ask them to beef up their security What's the threat model for a ground station? Interception? Sabotage? Hardware theft? Can you even sell these things on eBay?

xenophonf 7y ago
Satellite navigation is a key strategic asset, as is any system that carries national and trans-national communications. Imagine being able to interfere with a navy's navigation, maybe not enough to stop them from getting somewhere but definitely enough to slow them down. Or imagine being able to change the position of a communications satellite, a device that is basically just dumb microwave relay---and microwave, I'll remind you, is highly directional. Or what about getting access to the ground station's network traffic? I'll bet that even when it's encrypted, there's still useful signals intelligence to be gleaned, and when it isn't encrypted (or encrypted badly), boy howdy. Satellites and their attendant infrastructure cost billions of dollars to deploy and maintain. They are incredibly valuable targets, making it worth an attacker's while to penetrate them. This is way beyond simple vandalism or ransomware.
- closeparen 7y ago
  I would expect ground stations that important to be on military bases, not random locations that a private company is scouting. No?
  - kube-system 7y ago
    A ground station can also point at things it's not supposed to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Midnight_broadcast_signal_intrusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Midnight_broadcast_sig...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tracker1 7y ago
  Don't really know any specifics, but I'd imagine being able to use the compromised satellites as simple rams against military satellites could be a significant risk, depending on the size of the fleet... even if not destroying a target. Not to mention just plain destruction of bringing down a fleet of satellites.
  - nradov 7y ago
    Very few commercial satellites carry enough maneuvering fuel to ram any military satellite. And none of them are equipped with the sensors needed for an intercept.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

bradknowles 7y ago

I did a six month consulting gig for Raytheon on their GPS OCX project — building the next-generation ground control systems to manage the current fleet of GPS satellites, plus the next-generation fleet of satellites. The rule at Raytheon was that Lockheed got the easy end of the job — they just had to design, build, and launch the new fleet. It was Raytheon who got the really hard end of the job, because they had to be able to seamlessly manage both the new and old fleets. I would submit that designing, building, and operating the ground control systems remains the hardest part of the job, even if you don’t have a legacy fleet of satellites that you have to manage on top of the new fleet. Think about it — when you’re doing the operations side of the house, you have to be perfect, all the time. That one time you aren’t perfect and your opsec fails, you lose. The other guys just have to be right once, and they can keep trying and trying and trying indefinitely, until they get that one time they win. That’s definitely the harder job.