Introduction
In today’s era of rapid technological advancement, satellite operators are managing increasingly complex space systems that generate vast amounts of high-frequency telemetry data. However, legacy monitoring tools designed for simpler IoT devices fall short when applied to satellites. Operating, testing, and maintaining these advanced systems requires observability software that goes far beyond what is needed for terrestrial devices like smart meters or industrial sensors.
To properly manage these intricate systems, engineers have often resorted to developing in-house telemetry solutions. While these custom-built tools may serve short-term needs, they come at a significant cost. Valuable engineering resources are diverted from core mission objectives, and as satellite networks scale, these brittle solutions often break under the strain, forcing teams to repeatedly rebuild and patch their telemetry systems. This cycle drains resources, introduces inefficiencies, and delays critical operations.
For satellite missions to scale efficiently while maintaining reliability, a new breed of observability software is needed. This paper explores how modern observability software surpasses legacy monitoring tools, the role of AI-powered observability, and how Sift’s comprehensive observability platform addresses the specific challenges faced by satellite operators.
Observability 101: More Than Just Monitoring
To understand why comprehensive observability is essential for satellite missions, it’s crucial to distinguish between advanced observability and traditional monitoring. Without this distinction, it’s easy to assume that legacy monitoring tools are sufficient when, in reality, they create more challenges than they solve.
When developing next-generation defense systems, one undeniable truth emerges: countless variables can—and will—fail, often in unpredictable ways.
Observability refers to the ability to comprehensively analyze a satellite system’s performance through its data outputs. As space missions become more complex, managing the enormous volume of telemetry data they generate is critical. The right observability tools enable engineers to quickly surface and resolve issues before they escalate into mission-critical failures. Without these tools, managing satellite fleets efficiently becomes nearly impossible.
When deploying and operating satellites, countless things can—and will—go wrong, many of them unpredictable. Observability provides real-time alerts and contextual insights, allowing engineers to proactively diagnose and address issues before they compromise mission success. As onboard software becomes more sophisticated, observability serves as the guiding framework for ensuring mission continuity.
Beyond Basic Monitoring: The Power of Observability
Many existing monitoring tools, such as Grafana, require engineers to predefine potential issues and set up dashboards accordingly. While this may work for predictable IT environments, it is insufficient for satellites operating in unpredictable conditions, where unforeseen anomalies frequently arise. Monitoring tools lack the capability to detect and alert on the unknown unknowns.
Observability, by contrast, provides a holistic understanding of system behavior. By leveraging telemetry logs, metrics, and traces, observability enables:
- Automated anomaly detection: Surfacing critical issues without requiring engineers to sift through raw data manually.
- Comprehensive system insights: Understanding the relationships between onboard software, hardware, and environmental factors.
- Real-time diagnostics and troubleshooting: Identifying root causes of anomalies before they escalate.
Unlike basic monitoring, observability adapts to evolving conditions, ensuring that satellite operators can handle unexpected challenges as they arise.
The Observability Challenge: Why Everyone Isn't Using It
Given the clear advantages of observability, why haven’t all satellite operators adopted these tools? The primary reason is the difficulty of building an effective observability stack. Developing and maintaining satellite systems is already a monumental challenge—adding custom telemetry infrastructure compounds the complexity. Many satellite organizations struggle with:
- Data Centralization: Aggregating vast telemetry data streams from diverse sources while ensuring consistency and accuracy.
- Scalability: Handling high-frequency telemetry data across large satellite constellations without performance degradation.
- Cross-Team Usability: Enabling collaboration between mission control, engineers, and ground station operators, regardless of technical background.
- Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring that telemetry data is stored and managed in compliance with industry standards and mission requirements.
As a result, many organizations attempt to build in-house solutions that often lack the scalability, automation, and efficiency required for mission success.
A monitoring tool can only detect anomalies it has been explicitly configured to track
Observability in the Real World: From Spacecraft to Satellites
Observability is particularly crucial for satellite operations, where real-time system health monitoring and rapid anomaly detection are mission-critical. Consider two real-world applications:
Satellite Constellation Management: Large satellite constellations require continuous coordination between spacecraft. Observability enables operators to monitor inter-satellite communications, propulsion system performance, and power levels in real time, ensuring seamless operations.
On-Orbit Anomaly Detection: Satellites operate in extreme conditions where unexpected environmental factors can impact system performance. Observability tools provide automated anomaly detection, helping engineers identify and mitigate issues such as solar radiation-induced errors or thermal fluctuations before they cause mission failures.
The Pitfalls of Building Observability In-House
Organizations that attempt to develop their own observability solutions often face recurring challenges:
- Scalability Issues: Managing the vast volume of telemetry data from large-scale satellite networks demands an optimized observability stack.
- Data Complexity: Normalizing and aligning high-frequency telemetry data across multiple onboard sensors is a significant challenge.
- Usability for Non-Engineers: In-house observability solutions often require complex queries and scripting, making them inaccessible to operations personnel.
- Maintenance Overhead: Keeping bespoke observability solutions up to date and scalable consumes valuable engineering resources.
The Limitations of IT Observability Tools
Many organizations mistakenly assume that traditional IT observability tools, designed for software applications, can meet their satellite telemetry needs. However, these tools fail to address key requirements:
- High-Frequency Telemetry Support: IT observability tools struggle to handle the rapid sampling rates required for spacecraft telemetry.
- Stateful Alerting: Satellite systems require alerts based on stateful, multivariate conditions that evolve over time, unlike the static thresholds used in IT environments.
- Real-Time Data Processing: Space missions require real-time, low-latency data processing to ensure operators can make split-second decisions.
Sift is pioneering the next generation of machine development with the first unified observability stack purpose-built for hardware data.
Sift: Comprehensive Observability for What's Next
Sift provides the first fully integrated observability stack purpose-built for satellite telemetry. Unlike generic IT tools or fragile in-house solutions, Sift offers:
- Automated Data Review: AI-driven anomaly detection and smart alerting to surface mission-critical issues.
- Real-Time Ingestion: High-performance telemetry ingestion and processing designed for high-cardinality space data.
- Scalable Storage: A low-latency storage solution optimized for high-frequency satellite telemetry.
- Intuitive Visualization: Accessible dashboards and visual tools designed for engineers, mission controllers, and operations personnel.
By leveraging Sift, satellite operators can reduce operational risk, accelerate anomaly resolution, and ensure mission continuity without the burden of maintaining an in-house observability stack.
Sift and the Future of AI-Powered Observability
AI is redefining observability by ensuring data is not just collected but structured, enriched, and instantly actionable. Unlike traditional AI solutions that function as an afterthought—applied to already-stored data—Sift is AI-native, meaning its platform structures data at ingestion. This ensures satellite operators gain real-time, contextualized insights without the need for time-consuming manual data preparation.
Many observability solutions treat AI as a post-processing layer, requiring engineers to clean, label, and prepare data before analysis can take place. This approach introduces inefficiencies and delays critical decision-making. Sift eliminates this bottleneck by automatically organizing, tagging, and enriching telemetry as it is ingested, ensuring AI models have access to structured, queryable data from the outset.
With Sift’s AI-native observability platform, satellite operators can:
- Predict and prevent failures through AI-structured telemetry that identifies deviations before they escalate into mission-critical issues.
- Reduce manual data review time by leveraging deterministic, transparent AI-driven insights that ensure compliance with aerospace standards.
- Enhance real-time decision-making by integrating AI-powered anomaly detection and fault isolation across high-frequency telemetry streams.
Sift’s AI capabilities go beyond simple anomaly detection. By structuring telemetry data at the moment of ingestion, Sift removes the inefficiencies of traditional machine learning pipelines, making AI-driven insights available in real time. This ensures that observability is not a black-box system but an explainable, deterministic process that engineers can trust in mission-critical environments.
By embedding AI within its data architecture, Sift enables satellite teams to proactively surface anomalies, correlate telemetry across multiple spacecraft, and gain deeper insight into system behavior. This intelligent approach reduces downtime, optimizes performance, and provides mission operators with actionable intelligence—ensuring operational continuity in dynamic space environments.
Observability as Ground Truth
When managing complex, mission-critical satellite systems, observability is not a luxury—it’s an operational necessity. Engineering teams need a unified source of truth to effectively operate, diagnose, and scale these intricate systems. Sift’s comprehensive observability platform provides that clarity, enabling teams to identify and resolve issues with unprecedented speed and accuracy.
Rather than wasting valuable time piecing together incomplete data from scattered tools and chasing down insights from siloed teams, Sift ensures that engineers have clear, actionable information at their fingertips. This centralized workflow helps capture institutional knowledge and ensures that critical telemetry insights persist from R&D to live operations.
Key Advantages of Sift’s Observability Platform:
- Streamlined Data Management and Accessibility: Engineers need to analyze vast amounts of data to understand satellite behavior. Sift provides maximum data visibility without the inefficiencies of poorly integrated tooling.
- Risk Mitigation: The possibility of mission failure due to unknown anomalies is a major concern for satellite operators. By automating anomaly detection and alerting, Sift helps mitigate risk and accelerates problem resolution.
- Comprehensive Fault Tolerance: Space-bound systems require exceptional quality control. Sift streamlines validation and verification, ensuring that satellite hardware and software function optimally under extreme conditions.
- Intelligent Data Storage and Retention: Satellite data storage demands are far greater than those of consumer hardware. Sift’s scalable, intelligent storage captures full-fidelity telemetry data, providing a historical reference to inform future system improvements.
Simplicity Through Observability
Sift’s unified observability platform is a force multiplier for satellite engineering teams. By providing a fully integrated stack built on open standards, Sift eliminates the inefficiencies of fragmented tools. With all satellite data consolidated into a single platform, teams can:
- Identify and resolve issues faster, reducing downtime and operational risk.
- Leverage a rich dataset to continuously improve satellite performance.
- Ensure cross-team collaboration and knowledge retention, preventing institutional knowledge loss.
Not only does Sift reduce the time and cost associated with building in-house observability solutions, but its intelligent design and automated workflows enable teams to focus on mission success rather than tool maintenance. Engineers can dedicate more of their time to innovation rather than drowning in fragmented data and inefficient troubleshooting.
Not only does Sift reduce the time and cost associated with building in-house observability solutions, but its intelligent design and automated workflows enable teams to focus on mission success rather than tool maintenance.
Conclusion: Observability as a Strategic Investment
As satellite engineering grows more complex, the importance of a robust observability strategy cannot be overstated. Sift’s platform offers the most advanced solution for managing, analyzing, and acting on satellite telemetry data, ensuring that mission teams have the tools they need to maintain operational excellence.
With the right observability tools in place, satellite operators can safeguard their missions against unforeseen failures, reduce operational overhead, and stay ahead in an increasingly competitive industry. In the high-stakes world of satellite operations, where data drives every decision, Sift’s observability platform provides the essential foundation for long-term success.
To learn how Sift can enhance observability for your mission-critical defense systems, schedule a demo with our team today.
