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We are building this: https://www.exodusorbitals.com https://www.exodusorbitals.com Feel free to ask questions

by d_silin 6y ago

iamgopal 6y ago
Possible Application of this ? Can't satellite just be dummy sensor and all computing works happen on the ground ?
- d_silin 6y ago
  Downlink is the biggest bottleneck at the moment. Your satellite camera or SDR can produce thousand times more data than the amount you can download. You'd definitely benefit from in-space processing.
  - jvanderbot 6y ago
    Downlink will pretty much always be the biggest constraint. You'll always want more data down than you can affordably downlink. And sensors will always produce more data.
shanxS 6y ago
Apart from science experiments and taking pictures, how can this platform be used to deliver business value?
- d_silin 6y ago
  There is a number of applications in development that will rely on in-space processing. Such as forest fire prediction, business intelligence from space (estimate the crop yields, oil reservoir levels, city planning and so on). Most of them use ML algorithms to extract valuable insights.
  - lozaning 6y ago
    Is bandwidth from outer space so expensive that you save money by moving compute to the edge and only pushing down results to earth instead of the entire data set?
    - d_silin 6y ago
      The bandwidth is not expensive. There is simply a lack of it. Most LEO satellites have 10-20 minutes a day communications window assuming single ground station. Amount of data you can download from a single pass is a tens or hundreds megabytes per day. One high-resolution camera image can be easily over 10MB.
      - lozaning 6y ago
        Very interesting, thanks for the follow up. Would this issue be any way relieved with things like AWS ground station? If you can only see a ground station from a satellite for 20 minutes, could you just add more ground stations? Or is that 20 minutes window constrained by something other than having a ground station within receiving range?
        d_silin 6y ago
        More ground stations will definitely make things better, but 24/7 connectivity to assets in LEO will take monumental, Starlink-scale level of effort.
        chinathrow 6y ago
        Would it be possible to use Starlink for comms if a sat is flying in a lower position?
        d_silin 6y ago
        In theory, yes. In practice, this will depend more on my negotiation skills when talking to Elon Musk and less on any technical challenge :)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Sanzig 6y ago
    I remain skeptical as to the broad applicability of this approach. Some amount of preprocessing on on the space segment is valuable for certain mission types, but I don't know how generalizable it is. By doing all your processing on the space segment you have eliminated the possibility for analysts to take the level zero / level one products and reprocess them manually, either for quality assurance purposes or to develop enhanced or entirely new capabilities with the data. The other main problem I have with satellite-as-a-service type approaches is that it requires building generic spacecraft hardware by necessity, which means that you'll never be optimized for a particular mission type. When you build a mission from scratch, you get to carefully specify sensor parameters to achieve your remote sensing objective. Not so much when you're trying to build a generic bird that does everything. For most applications that benefit from generic data, what's the advantage over, say, downloading data from Copernicus (which already has pole to pole coverage at moderate resolution and revisit) or tasking a DigitalGlobe satellite to do the work? I can think of some edge cases where realtime calls might be valuable (eg: dynamic re-tasking based on realtime image analysis, especially if you have a wide-view forward squinted sensor and a higher resolution nadir sensor), but I really don't see the broad applicability. It's true that communications is definitely a bottleneck in high resolution wide-coverage missions, but there are other intermediate approaches that work before going all the way to doing the entirety of the processing including decisionmaking on the space segment. We have a lot of room to grow in the comms space, such as moving EO missions to Ka-band (and above) and free-space laser for missions without stringent data latency requirements. Sure, it's a crowded world if you're doing X-band from an isoflux antenna, but there's other architectural options to improve throughout. We can also look at doing selective preprocessing on the space segment (ie: up to Level 1 products) which may allow for better data compression. I'm not saying there isn't room for space segment processing and dynamic tasking - I saw a really interesting mission proposal a while back that used it extensively. But I don't see the business case for it on generic satellites in all but particularly niche cases.
    - d_silin 6y ago
      Well, that deserves a reply beyond the HN comment format. ESA hosted an event, called Phi Week, presenting many possible application cases in Earth Observation domain: https://livestream.com/esa/phiweek2020 https://livestream.com/esa/phiweek2020 If you don’t want to filter through 20 hours of videos, drop me an email to contact@exodusorbitals.com, I can send you a written summary. And some documents on our platform capabilities.
leptoniscool 6y ago
What's the pricing structure look like?
- d_silin 6y ago
  "Pay per orbit model", with price range from $200 to $10K per orbit, depending on customer needs.
  - jrumbut 6y ago
    How much competition is there at that price point? To me being able to outlay such a small amount to get some space stuff done creates a situation like early PCs. They look like weak computers but you when you get some capability into so many more hands people start figuring out unexpected uses for it.
    - d_silin 6y ago
      There is no competition at this price point. Our vision is exactly like you described, giving millions of people first-class level of access to software development platform in space.

We are building this: https://www.exodusorbitals.com https://www.exodusorbitals.com Feel free to ask questions

iamgopal 6y ago

Possible Application of this ? Can't satellite just be dummy sensor and all computing works happen on the ground ?

d_silin 6y ago
Downlink is the biggest bottleneck at the moment. Your satellite camera or SDR can produce thousand times more data than the amount you can download. You'd definitely benefit from in-space processing.
- jvanderbot 6y ago
  Downlink will pretty much always be the biggest constraint. You'll always want more data down than you can affordably downlink. And sensors will always produce more data.

shanxS 6y ago

Apart from science experiments and taking pictures, how can this platform be used to deliver business value?

d_silin 6y ago
There is a number of applications in development that will rely on in-space processing. Such as forest fire prediction, business intelligence from space (estimate the crop yields, oil reservoir levels, city planning and so on). Most of them use ML algorithms to extract valuable insights.
- lozaning 6y ago
  Is bandwidth from outer space so expensive that you save money by moving compute to the edge and only pushing down results to earth instead of the entire data set?
  - d_silin 6y ago
    The bandwidth is not expensive. There is simply a lack of it. Most LEO satellites have 10-20 minutes a day communications window assuming single ground station. Amount of data you can download from a single pass is a tens or hundreds megabytes per day. One high-resolution camera image can be easily over 10MB.
    - lozaning 6y ago
      Very interesting, thanks for the follow up. Would this issue be any way relieved with things like AWS ground station? If you can only see a ground station from a satellite for 20 minutes, could you just add more ground stations? Or is that 20 minutes window constrained by something other than having a ground station within receiving range?
      - d_silin 6y ago
        More ground stations will definitely make things better, but 24/7 connectivity to assets in LEO will take monumental, Starlink-scale level of effort.
        chinathrow 6y ago
        Would it be possible to use Starlink for comms if a sat is flying in a lower position?
        d_silin 6y ago
        In theory, yes. In practice, this will depend more on my negotiation skills when talking to Elon Musk and less on any technical challenge :)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Sanzig 6y ago
  I remain skeptical as to the broad applicability of this approach. Some amount of preprocessing on on the space segment is valuable for certain mission types, but I don't know how generalizable it is. By doing all your processing on the space segment you have eliminated the possibility for analysts to take the level zero / level one products and reprocess them manually, either for quality assurance purposes or to develop enhanced or entirely new capabilities with the data. The other main problem I have with satellite-as-a-service type approaches is that it requires building generic spacecraft hardware by necessity, which means that you'll never be optimized for a particular mission type. When you build a mission from scratch, you get to carefully specify sensor parameters to achieve your remote sensing objective. Not so much when you're trying to build a generic bird that does everything. For most applications that benefit from generic data, what's the advantage over, say, downloading data from Copernicus (which already has pole to pole coverage at moderate resolution and revisit) or tasking a DigitalGlobe satellite to do the work? I can think of some edge cases where realtime calls might be valuable (eg: dynamic re-tasking based on realtime image analysis, especially if you have a wide-view forward squinted sensor and a higher resolution nadir sensor), but I really don't see the broad applicability. It's true that communications is definitely a bottleneck in high resolution wide-coverage missions, but there are other intermediate approaches that work before going all the way to doing the entirety of the processing including decisionmaking on the space segment. We have a lot of room to grow in the comms space, such as moving EO missions to Ka-band (and above) and free-space laser for missions without stringent data latency requirements. Sure, it's a crowded world if you're doing X-band from an isoflux antenna, but there's other architectural options to improve throughout. We can also look at doing selective preprocessing on the space segment (ie: up to Level 1 products) which may allow for better data compression. I'm not saying there isn't room for space segment processing and dynamic tasking - I saw a really interesting mission proposal a while back that used it extensively. But I don't see the business case for it on generic satellites in all but particularly niche cases.
  - d_silin 6y ago
    Well, that deserves a reply beyond the HN comment format. ESA hosted an event, called Phi Week, presenting many possible application cases in Earth Observation domain: https://livestream.com/esa/phiweek2020 https://livestream.com/esa/phiweek2020 If you don’t want to filter through 20 hours of videos, drop me an email to contact@exodusorbitals.com, I can send you a written summary. And some documents on our platform capabilities.

leptoniscool 6y ago

What's the pricing structure look like?

d_silin 6y ago
"Pay per orbit model", with price range from $200 to $10K per orbit, depending on customer needs.
- jrumbut 6y ago
  How much competition is there at that price point? To me being able to outlay such a small amount to get some space stuff done creates a situation like early PCs. They look like weak computers but you when you get some capability into so many more hands people start figuring out unexpected uses for it.
  - d_silin 6y ago
    There is no competition at this price point. Our vision is exactly like you described, giving millions of people first-class level of access to software development platform in space.