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TytoSpace · Ground station software

Your ground station, built on software.

The receive side of a ground station, in software. Three products, one platform:

Request a pilot See the spec sheet

In operation at the Poznań University of Technology ground stations · Space Arena 2026 finalist

Measured: more data, less hardware

Reference decoders4,066

TytoSpace6,220 · +53%

$59k vs $511k+receive hardware and maintenance for a three-antenna station over five years

Bars: valid packets from 266 archived CANVAS recordings (FSK 9600), identical input, Dire Wolf and gr-satellites combined against TytoSpace; one mission, a cohort also used in development, higher compute. Station example: UHF, S-band and X-band antennas over five years, TytoSpace software licence not included; details in the Cost chapter.

01 · Cost

Add a module, not a rack unit.

Today a station is built antenna by antenna. Each dish or Yagi feeds its own rack of modems and receivers, the most expensive equipment in the station, and every unit carries its own paid licences. Operators set the equipment up for each pass by hand.

€107,000one S-band telemetry modem, per antenna

$2,387a USRP B210 software-defined radio

$245k–398kone X-band high-rate receiver, per antenna

~$15–18kUSRP B210 + server, enough for the 15 Msym/s we decoded

It doesn't have to be like this.

With TytoSpace each antenna needs only a software-defined radio and a small edge node. One GPU server processes every antenna, passes are planned and run automatically, and a new mission is a software module, not a licence upgrade.

TytoSpace also does what those boxes do not: it keeps the raw recording of every pass, recovers frames offline and identifies unknown signals.

Public procurement records: two Cortex CRT-Quantum units for €214,001 (DLR, 2021, TED 412189-2021); Cortex HDR receivers $244,944–398,000 (NASA, 2018–2023, USAspending). Ettus list prices. Hardware purchase only: the TT&C modems also transmit and range, which TytoSpace does not, and the TytoSpace software licence is not included. The X-band figure covers the highest rate TytoSpace has decoded so far, QPSK 15 Msym/s from NOAA-20; faster links need a wider SDR such as a USRP X410 ($33,020 list), which narrows the gap.

Example · UHF, S-band and X-band antennas · 5 years

Traditional

$511–661k

TytoSpace

~$59k + licence

X-band receiver$245kUSRP X410 · $33k
S-band telemetry modem~$116kUSRP B210 · $2.4k
UHF$0.4kUSRP B210 · $2.4k
Processingin each unitone GPU server · ~$21k
Maintenance, 5 years$150–300kin the licence

TytoSpace stays cheaper even with a licence of up to ~$90k a year.

Lowest public prices: Safran high-rate receiver $244,944 (NASA, 2023, USAspending); two Cortex CRT-Quantum €214,001 (DLR, 2021, TED 412189-2021), €107k each at about 1.08 USD/EUR; Kantronics KPC-9612XE TNC $430. Maintenance assumed at $15–30k a year for each of the two large units, from NASA maintenance renewals for a receive system. Ettus list prices; GPU server estimated from component list prices. Uplink is excluded on both sides.

02 · Plan · AI-powered

Every pass is planned before it rises.

TytoSpace Plan computes every pass over every antenna from current orbital elements, gives each one a quality score and books the antenna, the band and the processing in one step. Two bookings can never hold the same antenna, and the plan is sent to each edge node as a signed bundle, so a station keeps working offline.

Learned models predict which contacts will actually deliver data, using orbit geometry, weather and space weather, and an optimizer turns the predictions into a schedule for every antenna, around the clock. When something changes, the plan is rebuilt and pushed to the edge.

25 Oct 2026 · PoznańBooked

11:26 UTCNOAA-20 · max 79° · X-band · score 87
11:07 UTCSuomi NPP · max 52° · X-band · score 80
03:36 UTCAqua · max 66° · X-band · night pass

Score of the NOAA-20 pass

Elevation 34.4 / 35

Duration 20 / 20

Link margin 12.5 / 25 (EIRP unknown)

Sunlit 10 / 10

Free antenna 10 / 10

Passes on the dish are real receptions from 25 October 2026, scored with the TytoSpace Plan formula; the link-margin term falls back to half when the satellite's EIRP is unknown. Passes on the Yagis in the timeline are examples.

03 · More data

Two chances at every pass.

A real-time decoder catches what it can while the satellite is overhead. TytoSpace keeps the raw recording and decodes it a second time, with methods a real-time receiver cannot afford. Keep scrolling to watch it fill the gaps.

Two real passes · same recording, decoded twice

LiveCELESTA telemetry: 3 frames. Meteor image: only after the decoder locks, 3,198 frames
2nd passCELESTA: 20 frames, including every charging-current spike. Meteor: the start of the pass, 3,700 frames

Telemetry: CELESTA, SatNOGS observation 6284801. gr-satellites decoded 3 frames, TytoSpace 20 from the same IQ; every frame passes CRC-16/X.25 and the 3 reference frames are among the 20. Values are the documented beacon fields in engineering units; the time axis is the analysis window, not onboard time. Image: one public Meteor-M2-2 recording, SatDump 1.2.2 3,198 frames, TytoSpace 3,700 (+502), every SatDump frame retained. The IQ trace is drawn for illustration. Methods: timing and phase hypotheses on overlapping windows, a channel model learned from validated frames with a Viterbi sequence detector, soft-list decoding; a frame counts only when its own CRC passes.

04 · Identification

Unknown signal? The modem works it out.

A traditional receiver is configured for the signal it expects. TytoSpace starts from the spectrum: it finds every carrier in the band, then tries combinations of modulation, symbol rate and coding for each one at the same time, spread across CPU cores and the GPU. A signal is named only when a combination yields valid frames. This is how TytoSpace locked onto PROBA-2 on 25 October 2026 without a prepared profile.

05 · Modules

Build the chain you need.

Every stage of the receive chain is a module, and each one runs on the cheapest hardware that can do it. Ready-made modules cover 642 satellite profiles, so most missions need no new code. Your own module plugs in at any tier: on the FPGA, on the GPU or on the CPU.

FPGAOn the radio: channel selection, Doppler correction, filtering and decimation, loaded before each pass so only a narrow stream leaves the antenna.
GPUHeavy parallel work: hypothesis search, Viterbi and LDPC decoding
CPUReed–Solomon, framing, CRC checks and products

GPU kernels: FIR filtering, K=7 Viterbi and DVB-S2 FEC on an NVIDIA A40. 27 demodulator and decoder modules; 642 satellite profiles have an executable receive plan, imported from open catalogues and qualified per mission.

Receive data from everything, everywhere, every time.

06 · Everywhere

Every kind of transmitter, every kind of station.

The same software runs on a mast in a field, on a 4.5 m dish, in an armoured vehicle or in a trench. On the battlefield it finds an unknown emitter, works out its modulation and decodes what it sends. Keep scrolling to switch the pair. Defence use →

CubeSatUHF telemetry · Yagi station on a rotator
SARRadar imaging satellite · tracking dish
EOImagery downlink · tracking dish
LaunchTelemetry during ascent · tracking dish
SIGINTHostile military UAV and Shahed-type drone: two unknown emitters found, classified and decoded · 8x8 armoured vehicle
AircraftFlight-test telemetry · field station in a trench

Airborne telemetry profiles: SOQPSK, CPM, PCM/FM.

Products

Three products, one platform.

01 · Ground Station as a Service

Every antenna you own, run as one network.

Planning, tracking, recording and delivery across all your stations.

Explore →

02 · Virtual modem

Decodes live, then decodes again.

A software modem on an SDR and a server that recovers the frames others miss.

Explore →

03 · Signal lab

Every pass, kept and open for inspection.

Waterfall, identification, replay and export for every recording.

Explore →

Spec sheet

What TytoSpace does.

On air / real signalVerified on the benchDelivered per project

Receive

VHF, UHF, S and X band
Up to 15 Msym/s decoded (QPSK, NOAA-20)
FSK, GMSK, AFSK, BPSK, QPSK, OQPSK
AX.25, CCSDS, Reed–Solomon, K=7
DVB-S2/S2X, LDPC, Turbo, SOQPSK, CPM
Uplink and ranging

Software

642 satellite profiles ready
+53% packets from recordings
Unknown signal to first frame in ~5 s
Signal lab for every pass
Scored, conflict-free planning
Learned planner tuned to your stations

Hardware

USRP B210, more via UHD and SoapySDR
ICOM IC-9700 for VHF/UHF
Rotators: rotctld, GS-232, Rot2Prog
GPU kernels on NVIDIA A40
FPGA front end on the radio

Operations

Edge node keeps recording offline
On premises or in the cloud
REST API, S3, DIFI/VITA-49, SSO
CCSDS SLE (RAF/RCF), tested with Yamcs
22/22 fault-injection runs passed
100 stations, no frame loss

Highest rate: NOAA-20 X-band, 958,134 frames from one recorded pass. Modulation and coding verified on real signals; DVB-S2 is bit-exact error correction against the reference, other items lab-only. Unknown-signal timing 5.1–5.8 s on replayed S-band recordings. Packet gain on 266 archived recordings. Reliability figures from bench tests; the availability objective is 99%.

What you still need

Antennas and LNAs, a downconverter for X-band, a control unit for large servo dishes, a time reference, network and UPS, and uplink equipment if you command the satellite.

Compared

How it stacks up.

	Hardware modem	SatNOGS	AWS Ground Station	TytoSpace
Hardware at each antenna	Modem rack	SDR	None of your own	SDR + edge node
Cost, three antennas	$511–661k over five years	Free software, your engineering time	$10–22 per contact minute	~$59k over five years + licence
Your antennas, offline	●	●	—	●
Raw recording of every pass	◐ option	◐ optional	● in your cloud	● by default
Recovers missed frames	◐ replay	—	◐ your software	● +53%
Identifies unknown signals	—	—	—	●
New mission	Licence upgrade	New profile	Your software	Module
Planning built in	◐ separate	●	●	●
Uplink and ranging	●	—	●	◐ per project

Hardware prices from public tenders (DLR on TED, NASA on USAspending). Paid options as documented by Kratos (quantumRadio), WORK Microwave and Safran. AWS Ground Station on-demand prices from the AWS price list. TytoSpace figures from our own benchmarks; the status of each feature is in the spec sheet. AWS charges per contact minute, so it has no fixed five-year total.

Pilot

How a pilot works.

InstallWe put an edge node and a server beside your current receiver, on one antenna and one mission.
Run side by sideYour passes are received by both. Nothing in your current chain changes.
CompareYou get a report on valid frames, time to data and the cost of running it, and you keep the recordings.

You provide

A split of the RF or IF feed from one antenna, a server slot or virtual machine beside it, a network link, and the link parameters of one mission. We bring the software and set it up with you.

Pricing on request.

Start small

One antenna, one satellite, one pilot.

We install TytoSpace beside your current receiver and compare the results on your own passes: valid frames, time to data and the cost of running it.

Request a pilot See the measurements

Product 1 of 3 · Ground Station as a Service

Every antenna you own, run as one network.

Plan passes across all your stations, track and record at each antenna, and deliver data to every customer under their own account. Antenna time you do not use becomes time you can sell.

Request a pilot Spec sheet

Plan

Book the passes worth having

Every pass gets a quality score from elevation, duration, link margin and antenna availability. Conflicts are resolved before the satellite rises.

Operate

Track and record at the antenna

An edge node beside each radio points the antenna, corrects Doppler and records raw IQ. It keeps recording if the network drops.

Deliver

Data to each customer

Frames, telemetry and products go to the customer's API or S3 bucket, with single sign-on, tenants and roles.

Pass detail

Checked before it rises.

Open any pass to see its track across the sky, elevation, azimuth and Doppler over time, and every transmitter the satellite carries.

Shows which transmitters have a ready decoder
Fits the receive band to the SDR's sample rate
Books the pass with one click, or adds it to a basket

Pass detail for the ISS over the Piotrowo UHF station: sky track, elevation and azimuth chart, polar plot, list of transmitters with frequency, mode and decoder status, and the receive band. — ISS over Piotrowo UHF: 80° maximum elevation, 6 min 47 s.

Platform

Two parts that deploy separately.

The service layer runs the network. The virtual modem processes the signal, at the antenna or on a processing server. You choose where for each station.

Management server or cloud

Ground station as a service

Everything an operator or a customer touches.

Pass booking and scheduling across stations
Station and equipment registry
Satellite catalogue with current orbits
Operator console and REST API
Single sign-on, tenants and roles (OpenID Connect)
S3 storage and signed software registry

Station edge or processing server

Virtual modem

Everything that touches the samples.

SDR and rotor control, Doppler correction
IQ capture over DIFI / VITA-49, with checksums
Blind identification of unknown signals
Live demodulation and decoding
Recovery from stored IQ after the pass
Frame validation and provenance

Deployment

Runs where your data has to stay.

Containers with stateless APIs and S3 storage, built for your own servers first and ready for a public cloud.

At the antenna

Edge node

Capture, tracking and live decoding beside the radio. It keeps recording if the network drops.

On your premises

Offline install

A signed offline package for sites with no internet connection. Software images are signed and come with a bill of materials.

Integrations

Open interfaces

DIFI / VITA-49 for IQ, a REST API, Prometheus metrics and delivery to any S3-compatible bucket.

Hardware	Support	Status
Ettus USRP B210	Through UHD and SoapySDR, local or remote	On air
ICOM IC-9700	Audio path and CAT control for VHF and UHF	On air
Rotors	rotctld (Hamlib), GS-232, Rot2Prog / MD-01	Acceptance run on site
Other SoapySDR radios	Through the same driver layer	Per project

Stations

On air near Poznań.

TytoSpace runs on the Poznań University of Technology ground stations, and we develop it with the university's research team.

TytoSpace station

Piotrowo, Poznań

Bands: VHF and UHF
Radios: USRP B210 SDR, ICOM IC-9700
Antenna: Yagis on a rotor
Role: Edge node: tracking, capture and live decoding

Shared dish, agreed time windows

4.5 m S/X dish

Bands: S and X
Campaign: About 200 passes scheduled by TytoSpace, 24–27 Oct 2026
Missions: Earth observation, solar and astronomy satellites
Role: Blind identification, live decoding, recovery

Product 2 of 3 · Virtual modem

Decodes live, then decodes again.

A software modem on a standard SDR and a server. It decodes while the satellite is overhead, then searches the full recording again and adds the frames it missed.

Request a pilot Spec sheet

+53%valid packets on 266 recordings

20 vs 3telemetry frames on one CELESTA pass

642satellite profiles ready to run

15 Msym/shighest rate decoded, X-band QPSK

Recovered by the modem · October 2026

What came down.

Each plate shows the pass it came from. Where another program rendered the final image, the caption says so.

NOAA-20 VIIRS true colour swath: Cyprus, Anatolia and the Black Sea at the top, cloud bands over Europe. — Plate 7X-bandNOAA-20 · VIIRS true colour
Pass
25 Oct 2026, 11:26 UTC, el. 79°
Link
7812 MHz
Decoded
8,842 telemetry frames, 38,463 packets by TytoSpace
Image
Rendered with SatDump

Suomi NPP VIIRS Day Microphysics false colour composite of the same region. — Plate 8X-bandSuomi NPP · Day Microphysics
Pass
25 Oct 2026, 11:07 UTC, el. 52°
Link
7812 MHz
Image
Rendered with SatDump

PROBA-2 SWAP extreme ultraviolet image of the Sun. — Plate 9S-bandPROBA-2 · SWAP
Pass
25 Oct 2026, 19:04 UTC
Link
2235 MHz, BPSK 2 Msym/s, K=7 + RS
Decoded
57,524 frames, 69 images
Image
Rendered by TytoSpace

Grid of CHEOPS telescope imagettes, 200 by 200 pixels, from successive hours, showing the star's three-lobed point spread function. — Plate 10S-bandCHEOPS · telescope imagettes of HD 209458
Link
2208.5 MHz
Decoded
Science format decoded by TytoSpace; photometry by our team

Aqua MODIS channel 31 thermal infrared image of cloud over Europe at night. — Plate 11X-bandAqua · MODIS 11 µm
Pass
25 Oct 2026, 03:36 UTC, night
Link
8160 MHz
Image
Rendered with SatDump

NOAA-21 VIIRS Fire Temperature RGB strip across the night pass. — Plate 12X-bandNOAA-21 · VIIRS Fire Temperature RGB, night pass
Pass
25 Oct 2026, 00:41 UTC
Image
Rendered with SatDump

Also received in the October campaign

Satellites on the list.

NOAA-20 X
NOAA-21 X
Suomi NPP X
Aqua X
CHEOPS S
PROBA-2 S
PROBA-V S
ALOS-4 S
PAZ S
ICEYE-X62 S
STRIX-2 S
Kinéis-1E S
AlSat-2A S
AlSat-2B S
ISS UHF
CubeSats VHF · UHF

One pass

What happens, in order.

Times are relative to acquisition of signal (AOS) and loss of signal (LOS).

Days before
Book
The pass is planned against orbits, antenna time and processing capacity. Conflicts are resolved before AOS.
AOS
Track and record
The station points the antenna, corrects Doppler and records raw IQ beside the radio.
First seconds
Identify
If the signal is unknown, its modulation, rate and coding are found from the samples.
About 5 s in
Decode live
The first valid frames reach the console and API while the satellite is still overhead.
After LOS
Recover
The full recording is searched again. New frames are added to the same pass, never duplicated.
Minutes later
Deliver
Frames, telemetry and products go to the API or your S3 bucket, with the raw IQ if you want it.

Coverage

What it decodes today.

We separate what has worked on real recordings from what has only been tested in the lab.

Link	Modulation and coding	Example missions	Status
VHF / UHF	FSK, GMSK, G3RUH 1k2–9k6 · AFSK1200 · BPSK · AX.25 · AX100 Reed–Solomon · AO-40 FEC · Mobitex · CC11xx · S-NET	CubeSats, FUNcube, ISS SSTV	Real IQ
S-band	BPSK, QPSK, OQPSK · CCSDS TM · convolutional K=7 + Reed–Solomon	CHEOPS, PROBA-2, PROBA-V, ALOS-4, PAZ, ICEYE	Real IQ
X-band	JPSS / EOS high rate data	NOAA-20, Suomi NPP, Aqua	Real IQ
DVB-S2	All 52 MODCODs and 29 S2X MODCODs, error correction chain	Bit-exact against the GNU Radio reference	Lab
Other	LoRa, SOQPSK and CPM, CCSDS Turbo and LDPC, 8PSK and 16QAM	Synthetic signals	Lab
Weather imagery	NOAA APT, HRPT, live Meteor LRPT imagery		Per project

642 satellite profiles have an executable receive plan, imported from open receiver catalogues. A profile is a configuration, not a qualified mission. We qualify each customer mission on its own recordings.

Processing

Runs on CPU, GPU or the radio.

Each block of the chain is a module. Heavy blocks move to the GPU, and you can add your own.

CPU

Every decoder

Demodulators, framing and error correction for all supported links run on ordinary server CPUs.

GPU

Heavy kernels

Filtering, Viterbi and DVB-S2 error correction kernels measured on an NVIDIA A40.

FPGA · per project

On the radio

Per-pass firmware on the SDR for low-latency front-end processing.

Evidence

Measured on the same samples.

Each comparison gives TytoSpace and the reference receiver identical input. A frame counts only when it passes its CRC or Reed–Solomon check. Every number below comes with its sample size and its limits.

+53%

Valid packets · 266 recordings

On 266 archived CANVAS recordings (FSK 9600), TytoSpace recovered 6,220 unique CRC-checked packets. Dire Wolf and gr-satellites together recovered 4,066. TytoSpace found at least one extra packet in 141 of the 266 recordings.

One mission, and a cohort we also used during development. TytoSpace uses much more compute than the reference receivers and missed 4 packets they found.

+16%

Image frames · Meteor-M2-2

On one public Meteor-M2-2 recording, TytoSpace decoded 3,700 frames where SatDump 1.2.2 decoded 3,198. Every SatDump frame is also in the TytoSpace output. Most of the extra frames come from the start of the pass, before SatDump produces its first output.

Meteor-M2-2 channel 1 decoded by SatDump: the first part of the pass is missing and shows as black.

The same recording decoded by TytoSpace: cloud imagery fills the area SatDump left black.

TytoSpaceSatDump 1.2.2

Recording from 3 Nov 2019. Channel 1, same renderer for both images. Drag the divider to compare.

20:3

Telemetry frames · one pass

On a CELESTA pass, TytoSpace found 20 frames that pass CRC-16/X.25. gr-satellites found 3, and all three are among the twenty.

One public recording from the SatNOGS network, not received by our station.

5.1–5.8s

Unknown signal to first frame

With nothing configured for the satellite, TytoSpace identified the signal and handed it to a live decoder. On ALOS-4 and CHEOPS the first valid frame arrived 5.1–5.8 s after the signal appeared.

S-band recordings replayed in real time, not live passes.

86→240

SSTV image lines · ISS

From our own UHF receptions at Piotrowo, a single receiver had produced one fragment of 86 of 240 lines. TytoSpace's SSTV decoder corrected Doppler from the orbit and combined several receptions line by line, recovering complete slides.

Left: a short partial SSTV image from one reception. Right: two complete ARISS slides recovered by combining receptions. — Plate 6UHF
Pass
25–26 Oct 2026, ARISS series 34

Reliability

Where we are on availability.

We publish a 99% availability objective and measure against it. A contractual SLA follows three months of measured operation on your deployment.

22 / 22

Fault-injection runs with no accepted job lost or duplicated.

50 stations

Bench load test with zero frame loss and 0.44 s p99 frame latency.

100 stations

Bench load test with zero loss on the frame path.

The SLA covers what TytoSpace controls: the software, the service and processing. It cannot cover the RF link or the satellite. The verification reports and benchmark protocols are available under NDA.

Your ground station, built on software.

Add a module, not a rack unit.

It doesn't have to be like this.

Every pass is planned before it rises.

Two chances at every pass.

Unknown signal? The modem works it out.

Build the chain you need.

Receive data from everything, everywhere, every time.

Every kind of transmitter, every kind of station.

Three products, one platform.

Every antenna you own, run as one network.

Decodes live, then decodes again.

Every pass, kept and open for inspection.

What TytoSpace does.

Receive

Software

Hardware

Operations

How it stacks up.

How a pilot works.

One antenna, one satellite, one pilot.

Every antenna you own, run as one network.

Book the passes worth having

Track and record at the antenna

Data to each customer

Checked before it rises.

Two parts that deploy separately.

Ground station as a service

Virtual modem

Runs where your data has to stay.

Edge node

Offline install

Open interfaces

On air near Poznań.

Piotrowo, Poznań

4.5 m S/X dish

Decodes live, then decodes again.

What came down.

Satellites on the list.

What happens, in order.

Book

Track and record

Identify

Decode live

Recover

Deliver

What it decodes today.

Runs on CPU, GPU or the radio.

Every decoder

Heavy kernels

On the radio

Every pass, kept and open for inspection.

See what went wrong, not just that it did.

Unknown signal? Point at it.

Take the data where you work.

Receive and identify, wherever the station is.

No network, no cloud

Found, classified, decoded

Stays on your hardware

From a vehicle mast to a 4.5 m dish.

Measured on the same samples.

Where we are on availability.

Built in Poznań, on real antennas.

Bring one antenna and one satellite.