Case Study: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory achieves rapid, reliable Mars image processing and scalable mission orchestration with Amazon Web Services

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Customer Case Study

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) faced a growing challenge processing large volumes of mission‑critical data from projects like the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) and the CARVE Arctic experiment. Their pipelines needed ordered, dependency‑aware execution for tasks such as stereo image generation, stitching multi‑gigapixel panoramas, and rapid tiling for on‑demand viewing, all on tight tactical timelines and with global users. Queue‑based approaches couldn’t express complex workflows reliably and led to duplication and costly rework, so JPL set goals for high availability, scalability, consistency, expressiveness, flexibility, and low latency.

JPL integrated Amazon Simple Workflow Service (SWF) into its Polyphony framework alongside EC2, S3, SQS and EMR to provide durable orchestration, routing, and visibility across local and cloud workers. SWF allowed succinct expression of split‑join and panorama workflows, dynamic scaling across environments, reliable distributed cron and backup jobs, and centralized monitoring. The result: better control and fewer duplicate tasks, rapid delivery of stereo and gigapixel panoramic imagery for tactical operations, and dramatically faster development and deployment—projects that once took months now take days.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory