Groundstation Diagnostics

AWS Ground Station Diagnostics

When to use

Any AWS Ground Station investigation — satellite contacts, antenna configuration, data delivery, mission profiles, or ground station location troubleshooting.

Investigation workflow

Step 1 — Collect and triage

aws groundstation list-ground-stations
aws groundstation list-satellites
aws groundstation list-configs
aws groundstation list-mission-profiles

Step 2 — Domain deep dive

aws groundstation get-config --config-id <id> --config-type <type>
aws groundstation get-mission-profile --mission-profile-id <id>
aws groundstation list-contacts --status SCHEDULED --start-time <start> --end-time <end>
aws groundstation describe-contact --contact-id <id>

Step 3 — Detailed investigation

aws groundstation get-dataflow-endpoint-group --dataflow-endpoint-group-id <id>
aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics --namespace AWS/GroundStation --metric-name ContactStatus --start-time <start> --end-time <end> --period 300 --statistics Sum
aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=EventSource,AttributeValue=groundstation.amazonaws.com --max-results 20

Read references/guardrails.md before concluding on any Ground Station issue.

Anti-hallucination rules

1. Always cite specific contact IDs, config IDs, or API responses as evidence.
2. Contacts must be scheduled during available pass windows. Never assume on-demand.
3. Only onboarded satellites with mission profiles can be contacted.
4. Data is delivered to your AWS resources, not stored at ground stations.
5. Ground stations are at specific locations, not in all AWS regions.
6. Spend no more than 2 minutes on any single hypothesis. Pivot if inconclusive.

12 runbooks