Ground Station Network (GSN)

Software In development

Ground Station Network (GSN)

GSN is a service for operating ground stations and connecting remote operators to the spacecraft control network. Unlike systems with deferred processing, GSN is strictly real-time: data and commands are transferred over WebSocket and WebRTC without intermediate session scheduling.

The service is fully protocol-agnostic — support for any vendor's spacecraft can be added as a separate module. Satellite and ground station operators connect to the network through a dedicated client. The source code will be released under the AGPLv3 license.

Repository Open the service

Images will appear later.

Features

Real-time operation

Telemetry and commands are transferred without intermediate scheduling — data flows directly over WebSocket and WebRTC.

Protocol-agnostic

Support for any vendor's spacecraft is added as a separate protocol module.

Remote station control

Manual control of rotators and radio equipment plus station telemetry from anywhere in the world.

Link observability

Real-time radio link metrics and status: signal levels, errors, packet statistics.

Server-pushed configuration

Flexible link configurations are delivered to clients from the server — no manual setup on every station.

Open source

The service will be released under the free AGPLv3 license.

Architecture

Satellite operator

GSN client

Ground station operator

GSN client

WebSocket WebRTC

GSN server

gsnctl

link signaling and configuration

Elixir

stationctl

remote station control

Elixir

route14

маршрутизация

Ground stations

rotators, transceivers, SDR

Радиолиния

Spacecraft in orbit

Simplified diagram. The final architecture may differ.

Comparison with alternatives

SatNOGS is an open network of ground stations with observation scheduling; "Efir" (efir.net.ru) is a network of online receivers. A comparison of key features is shown below.

Feature	SatNOGS	"Efir"	GSN
Real-time spacecraft operations
Access to historical data
Command uplink
Scheduled command uplink
Manual station control (rotators, radio)
Arbitrary protocol support
Real-time link observability
Server-pushed link configuration
Works in a browser without installing a client
Open community station network
License	AGPLv3	proprietary	AGPLv3

Screenshots

Interface screenshots will appear later.

Служба наземных станций (GSN)