Objectives of the Product

Satellite space missions’ development has increased in the last years. Apart from all the complexity of the development of the space segment, it is crucial that adequate processing instruments exist on ground. Ones that are flexible enough to serve any mission regardless of size and complexity, with minimum to none need of tailoring and that can be easily accessible by clients of all sizes.

This EOP-LABS project will make GMV Prodigi available through the AWS Marketplace. GMV Prodigi is a Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS) service that clients can procure without any third-party intervention, including the cloud processing capacity dimensioned for their needs, and set up the processing chain as they see fit.

Users will be able to insert and test their own image processors in a “plug and play” way, allowing a better time to market.

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Customers and their Needs

From the GMV experience and contacts with target customers, the main needs and suggestions for improvements are:

• Automating service provision
• Reducing the time to market of imagery products (First-mover advantage)
• Managing large amounts of data in processing and dissemination.
• Being ready to cope with changes in the mission configuration.
• Accessing a processing platform without the costs and time-consuming hardware procurement or complex setups.
• Accessing EO processing infrastructures in a standalone mode, without the need to establish third party agreements.

These needs are common to every target customer identified.

In this activity, GMV will count with the involvement of two users – a satellite manufacturer and a satellite operator/provider of EO services – that will provide real data for comparison and critically analyse the performance of GMV Prodigi running from the AWS Marketplace and servers.

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Targeted customer/users countries

The target customers, at least for the first stages of commercialisation, will be European. However, due to the global nature of the service to be provided, customers are expected to be from any country. The identified customer segments are:

• Satellite operators
• Satellite manufacturers that develop their own instrument data processing chains
• Ground-segment operators
• EO service providers
• The EO scientific community

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Product description

This will be the first automated, self-contained PDGS service available online for any users.

With this, users will be released of the PDGS service procurement and the need of extensive hardware procurement and configuration, allowing a better focus on the core activities of satellite imagery production and exploitation.

GMV Prodigi is not dedicated to the implementation of the image processors but allows an easy process to install, test and run multiple processors to the user.

GMV Prodigi will be available in the AWS Marketplace. Users can download it and the configuration of the processing power will be secured, according to the needs of the mission, during the installation process.
Users can then plug their image processors through a simple API and configure the desired processing chain.
Then, the processing is secured on the cloud-based network configured at installation and the users will receive the processing data at the desired location.

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Added Value

Traditional mission ground segment developments undergo multiple steps, some of which are not contributing to the final goal of the mission, which is the provision of added value products.

EOP-LABS will remove or facilitate some of the steps. This will translate in products’ time savings to market and a decrease in complexity and costs during the implementation.

When users intend to acquire a processing chain, either they develop it in-house or buy existing solutions. Typically, these solutions must be highly tailored to the mission needs, hence being “locked” to the mission initial configuration. This always implies a procurement and negotiation process for the PDGS acquisition.

The EOP-LABS approach will remove the need for this procurement. GMV Prodigi will be accessible to any user, who can acquire it directly from the AWS Marketplace, according to the price schemes proposed and have it ready for usage once installed.

Since the processing capabilities are fully cloud-based, the HM procurement is removed as is the need to configure and maintain it. Integration of the image processors is also a simple feature. They can be “dropped” in GMV Prodigi, replaced and tested with simple procedures and configuration of the chain.

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Current Status

GMV has secured the ‘AWS Partner’ status and is currently deploying the base version of GMV Prodigi with the current installation procedures in AWS servers, the same environment where it is supposed to be used by the clients. Once it is fully functional, the next step will be the development of the installation package that will automate the installation of GMV Prodigi.

In parallel, the preparation for AWS verification procedures for a Marketplace app is ongoing.