Quickstart

You can be sending your first task within ten minutes. The platform speaks GraphQL and gRPC; for ad-hoc queries, the GraphQL endpoint is the easier of the two.

1. Create an account

Sign up at the account page and complete the operator verification. We verify against the ITU registration database; the process is automated and takes under a minute for most operators.

2. Generate an API key

Once verified, head to the operator console and generate an API key. Keys are scoped — pick the minimal scope you need.

3. Send your first task

Tasks are submitted as GraphQL mutations. Here's a minimal example:

# Submit an imaging task against spacecraft AQUILA-04
mutation TaskAquisition {
  submitTask(input: {
    spacecraftId: "AQUILA-04",
    kind: "IMAGING",
    priority: "NORMAL",
    window: {
      earliest: "2026-05-22T03:14:00Z",
      latest:   "2026-05-22T03:38:00Z"
    },
    payload: {
      mode: "EO_PAN",
      target: { lat: "64.13", lon: "-21.94" }
    }
  }) {
    id
    state
    scheduledAt
  }
}

4. Subscribe to the state stream

OpenTelemetry-compatible stream. The simplest client is a small otel-collector binary pointed at the OTLP endpoint.

# otel-collector config (excerpt)
receivers:
  otlp:
    protocols:
      grpc:
        endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4317
exporters:
  otlp/helion:
    endpoint: telemetry.helionhq.link:4317
    headers:
      authorization: Bearer ${env:HELION_API_KEY}
service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers: [otlp]
      exporters: [otlp/helion]

5. Set up your first watchdog rule

Watchdog rules live in the operator console under Rules → Anomaly. A minimal rule looks like this:

rule gyroscope_x_drift {
  when: spacecraft.gyro.x > 0.012 rad/s for 30s
  do:   [open_incident(severity=P2), page(on_call.ground_svalbard)]
}

That's it. The engine takes over from here.