OGS Tracker is a free registry of the world's optical groundlink stations, locations, apertures, wavebands, operators and the regulatory picture around each site, catalogued in one place. Opening August 2026.
41
Operational stations documented
Aug '26
Database opens
51 documented sites across 18 countries so far, from agency observatories to the first commercial arrays, and growing as the registry is built out. New stations are added as they're documented; the database puts the fields that matter behind every dot.
OperationalIn developmentMore added as the registry grows
01
Coordinates, altitude and the atmospherics that decide availability, cloud-free line-of-sight statistics, seeing conditions, and which sites pair usefully for diversity.
02
Aperture, manufacturer, adaptive optics, tracking performance and wavelength coverage, whether a site receives at 1064 or 1550 nm, the beacon it transmits, and the uplink and downlink data rates it has demonstrated.
03
The CCSDS standards each station speaks, O3K, HPE, the space terminals it has actually closed links with, and the networks it schedules through.
04
Operational status, commercial, government or hybrid operation, who can book passes, and the point of contact that gets you on the schedule. Verified operators take booking requests directly from their record.
05
The part nobody else catalogues: licensing authority and license status, ITU filing references, host-nation landing-rights posture, dual-use classification, and laser-clearance and aviation coordination, noted per site, in plain language.
Optical comms is scaling faster than anyone is documenting it. Site data sits scattered across papers, press releases and filings, so OGS Tracker gathers it into one free, citable database, corrected in the open by the people who operate the stations. Every entry cites its source, and the inclusion methodology is published alongside the data. No paywall, no login, and listing can't be bought: the one paid service, operator verification, never changes what a record says — only who has confirmed it.
It's built by Evan Grey, legal contributor at SatNews on the regulatory and industrial side of the space sector. The case for the database, the gap between orbital capacity and ground infrastructure, is made at length in The Downlink Deficit.
The database opens in August 2026. Leave an email for the launch note, one message, no list. Operating a station, or holding data we should have? Write to the contribute form.
We'll send one note when the database opens, nothing else. Holding station data? Reach us any time at the contribute form.