Atlas Space Operations in Traverse City Expands Ground Station Network

Atlas Space Operations Inc. in Traverse City, a provider of communications for the space industry, today announced it has brought online nine new ground stations in its network. This brings the total to 13 ground stations, with an additional 17 sites planned by 2020.
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Atlas Space
Traverse City’s Atlas Space Operations Inc. has brought online nine new ground stations in its network. This brings the total to 13 ground stations, with an additional 17 sites planned by 2020. // Photo courtesy of Atlas Space Operations

Atlas Space Operations Inc. in Traverse City, a provider of communications for the space industry, today announced it has brought online nine new ground stations in its network. This brings the total to 13 ground stations, with an additional 17 sites planned by 2020.

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, the company 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 says it has experienced more than double the amount of satellite passes in the second quarter, and is 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, Mich.; Harmon, Guam; Mojave, Calif.; Chitose, Japan; Tahiti, French Polynesia; Longovilo, Chile; Ningi, Australia; and Usingen, Germany. In September, locations will be added in Brewster, Wash. and Albuquerque, N.M.

“The new locations are highly strategic and enhance the geographical dispersion of the ATLAS ground network,” says Sean McDaniel, founder and CEO 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.”

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, a platform that enables autonomous constellation management, reduces the human cost of managing 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.

For more information on Atlas Space Operations, visit https://www.atlasground.com/.