ATLAS Space Operations Extends Global Reach with Nine New Ground Stations

ATLAS Space Operations, Inc., a leading innovator in communications for the space industry, announced it has brought online nine new ground stations in its network. This brings the total to thirteen ground stations, with an additional seventeen sites planned by 2020. These new stations have all become fully operational in the span of the last two quarters – a rapid and unprecedented broadening of ground communication capabilities that indicates growth in the satellite industry and demand for ATLAS’ solutions.

The additional stations expand ATLAS’ global presence and will help facilitate the growth of its customer base in both the public and private sectors. To date, ATLAS has added to its global network one new ground station per month, and will continue the pace moving forward. With its automated scheduling, allowing for set-and-forget tasking, ATLAS saw an over 100% increase in the amount of passes in second quarter 2019, and are on track to quadruple that rate in the third quarter.

By increasing the number of sites available in the network, ATLAS can reduce the amount of time between when a satellite can communicate with its owners. This translates to faster data and reduced costs to the customer.

The new ground stations cover a range of polar and equatorial locations, including: Sodankyla, Finland; Cedar, Michigan; Harmon, Guam; Mojave, California; Chitose, Japan; Tahiti, French Polynesia; Longovilo, Chile; Ningi, Australia; and Usingen, Germany. Coming soon in Sept 2019 are Brewster, Washington and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“The new locations are highly strategic and enhance the geographical dispersion of the ATLAS ground network,” said Sean McDaniel, CEO and Founder of ATLAS. “Due to the locations of the sites we prioritized, our customers can realize near real-time latency when it comes to getting their valuable and time-sensitive data.”

Notably, eight of the new stations are capable of receiving data in S and X-band frequencies. This allows for much faster transfer rate of large files whose value depends on timeliness, such as the high-resolution data generated from earth observation satellites.

In addition to faster data, pairing the new sites with ATLAS’ FREEDOM™ platform offers other benefits. FREEDOM™ enables autonomous constellation management, reducing the human cost of having to manage satellites and schedule connections through multiple ground stations. With a secure, cloud-based platform, customers can log into ATLAS’ entire network through a single VPN, giving them the power to get their data on their terms. ATLAS has enabled customers to get that data even faster with the new locations in its network.

This network expansion also represents an even larger network for FREEDOM™ customers who use the platform to access data using AWS Ground Station. Earlier this month, ATLAS announced support for AWS Ground Stations through the easy to use FREEDOM™ platform, making scheduling across an even larger ground station network a snap.