I saw this post on the Amazon Web Services weblog (via Stephen Downes) about Amazon offering ground station services for people operating micro-satellites – amazing! Processing satellite data is now just another web service….
A long time ago, I was a volunteer for the Lunar Prospector mission (before it became a NASA Discovery Program), and I was in contact with John Champa (K8OCL, SK) about setting up a ground station network using ham radio operators to collect data from the Lunar Prospector satellite. We did not get far with the volunteer effort, and it ground to a halt. I did attend the NASA launch (fun!) and followed the mission from afar. Boy, if this Amazon service existed back then, it would have been cool!
References:
Lunar Prospector archive page from NASA (original site http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/ does not seem to exist at NASA or Internet Archive
Lunar Prospector book summary written by project scientist Alan Binder