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Comment by tectonic | Hacker News Reader

Decent intro to CubeSat hardware. If you want to know about CubeSat software, let me know. The company I work for, Kubos, builds an open source OS for small satellites: https://www.kubos.com/kubos/

(I work on our web-based ground control software, Major Tom.)

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(Say hi to Marshall!)

And if someone has any questions about the ground side of things I work at KSAT which provides a global network of ground stations (both cubes and larger).

We often find sat builders completely forgetting about the ground segment and then struggle to communicate with the cube. Often by using exotic encoding and/or modulation schemes or choosing frequency bands that are either too crowded or hard to license in some parts of the world.

Does it make sense to run a ground station as a business, renting out the bandwidth to those who need it?

AWS recently announced their ground station service[0] to do just this. At the time I didn't understand why they would build such a service, but reading this article and setting your comment brought it into focus for me.

[0] https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/

Alternatively if you want to have open data and share it with the community you can set up a SatNOGS ground station. Even if you don't have a Cubesat in the works. Check out wiki.satnogs.org

Yeah, it's big business actually. Having ground stations at the right spot means a lot, but the equipment is expensive (but getting cheaper every year now). We multi-tenant our assets to provide a cost effective solution and aid in getting those licenses. From the links others posted you can see that AWS recently launched a service to compete head to head with us. It's certainly interesting to be targeted by them, to say the least.

> (I work on our web-based ground control software, Major Tom.)

Does it ever bug you that ground control is Major Tom?

Interesting approach to flight software. Where are you guys based? Are you hiring?

We're based in Denton, TX, but much of the team is remote. Not hiring today, but likely soon! Feel free to email me.

Cool. I sent you an email through your contact form.

How does Kubos make money and fund full time employees and future updates?

We sell Major Tom, our ground control software, and support contracts for KubOS.

Hope yall are doing well! I had no idea this industry existed until Ryan showed me one of the tiny cubesats in the office!

Curious if you receive any branding confusion over Kubos versus Kubernetes?

Hello! I'm not aware of anyone confusing the two.

Cool. I think I've met you guys at the DEC.

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