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Nov 14th, 2017 by Dallas Kasaboski, NSR.
Satellite imagery has traditionally been sold by the scene. Customers would look at certain criteria, and satellite operators would match their request with available archived or tasked images. Sales cycles were long, and the focus was on the quality and the resolution of the data.

However, increasing supply, and pressure from downstream services are prompting the development of volume-based imagery platforms, serving customers on the cloud, through a subscription or revenue-sharing system.

But who will be the main users of high-volume imagery platforms? What imagery do they need? And how should these platforms be designed?

NSR’s Satellite-based Earth Observation, 9th Edition report forecasts the global opportunity for the sale of satellite imagery to reach $1.8 Billion by 2026, driven by high demand downstream, and more competition upstream from new players and constellations.

Moving away from pixels to analysis and insights, demand for high volumes of imagery is growing quickly, especially for Big Data analytics applications. Companies such as Orbital Insights, Ursa Space, and Descartes Labs, looking to monitor entire economies, track multitudes of assets, and better model customer behavior, require platforms that streamline, and in some cases, automate the image-selection process.

NSR forecasts optical high-resolution (HR) imagery will be in greatest demand, benefitting from lower prices than very high-resolution (VHR) ones, with high precision suited to asset monitoring. As such, HR optical imagery sales will represent 58% of the global market by 2026. However, SAR data demand is expected to increase, with new constellations planned by Capella Space and Iceye among others. Bulk-order contracts between SI Imaging and Ursa Space are just one example of SAR data becoming more commoditized.

Currently, there are over 30 commercial satellite imagery constellations planned for the next decade, and while it is unlikely that all will launch, the increasing competition will continue to drive both optical and SAR imagery prices down.

Data platforms are not just the domain of emerging Earth Observation companies. DigitalGlobe’s GBDx and Airbus D&S’ OneAtlas services allow developers to create tools to extract insights from growing imagery libraries.

As more platforms come online, added functionality and customer-focused design will be important for securing additional business and broadening the market. Key factors for high-volume imagery services are quality, cadence, pricing, and the data platform itself. Quality of imagery differs from one vertical to another, with most service-based verticals demanding higher resolution, and many wide-area monitoring applications able to make do with medium or lower resolution. Cadence, more often referred to as refresh, refers to the frequency of data collection and delivery, better for applications looking to assess the current and future states of markets. High-volume services bring a significant price reduction for imagery, more-so in medium resolution (MR) markets where prices have already depreciated quite rapidly in recent years. Finally, as more data platforms are developed, extra features such as automation and value-added information will be leveraged to garner more customers.

While even the most traditionally-minded verticals are also making the transition to volume-based platforms, such as through Planet’s $14M contract with NGA, and BlackSky Global’s $16M contract with the USAF, this transition is slow, and more predominant in North America. Established relationships, a strong tendency to internalize imagery analysis, and different sales cycles than seen in more service-based verticals are expected to limit volume-based platform adoption in most regions. As a result, NSR expects Defense & Intelligence and Public Authorities to more strongly favor traditionally-purchased, by-the-scene VHR imagery, forecasting these verticals to represent 75% of the entire data market by 2026.

Bottom Line

There is significant pressure for the commoditization of commercial satellite Earth Observation data today. Downstream service providers want more data, more often, to extract insightful value from imagery coupled with ancillary data sources. There is a long-established history of declining imagery prices, which is accelerated due to increasing competition and supply both up- and down-stream.

Volume-based platforms are expanding the opportunity for Earth Observation data, attracting customers and users typically outside the industry, through Big Data analytics. As such, volume purchases are better for business, tapping into a segment growing 5 times faster than traditional scene-buying has traditionally experienced.

New data providers, focused on high imagery cadence, will require volume-based platforms to leverage their imagery, and established providers have already begun benefitting from the way platforms can make archived imagery relevant again. The more traditionally-minded verticals will continue to hesitate to adopt these platforms, but cost-saving automation and more frequent and reliable data are enticing opportunities.

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15 November 2017. ESA has chosen two concepts, FORUM and SKIM, to be developed further and compete to be the ninth Earth Explorer mission.

Thanks to new technical developments, the Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) candidate would measure radiation emitted from Earth across the entire far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Significantly, it measures in the 15–100 micron range, which has never been done from space before.

These observations are important because Earth emits infrared radiation to space, which is affected by water vapour and cirrus clouds, which, in turn, play key roles in Earth’s temperature.

FORUM’s benchmark measurements would improve our understanding of the greenhouse effect and, importantly, contribute to the accuracy of climate change assessments that form the basis for policy decisions.

The Sea-surface Kinematics Multiscale monitoring (SKIM) candidate would carry a novel wide-swath scanning multibeam radar altimeter to measure ocean-surface currents. Uniquely, it uses a Doppler technique, which offers more direct measurements than conventional satellite altimeters.

These new measurements would improve our understanding of vertical and horizontal ocean–surface dynamics over the global ocean every few days. This would lead to better knowledge of how the ocean and atmosphere interact – for example, how atmospheric carbon dioxide is drawn down into the ocean.

SKIM would have particular relevance for understanding the rapidly changing Arctic Ocean, and for observing equatorial regions where conventional satellite altimeters are unable to provide useful measurements of currents.

ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Josef Aschbacher, said, “As part of our effort to realise cutting-edge missions, Earth Explorers are built to answer some of the most pressing scientific questions about our planet.Out of the 13 concepts that we received following our call for proposals last year, the Earth Science Advisory Committee recommended that FORUM and SKIM enter a competitive feasibility phase.

“With this recommendation now accepted, these two candidates will spend the next two years being studied thoroughly. In 2019, a User Consultation Meeting will be held, after which a decision will be taken by ESA’s Member States as to which of the two contenders will be implemented.

“We foresee Earth Explorer 9 being launched in 2025.”

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Élancourt, France 22 November 2017 – La Direction générale de l’armement (DGA), the French Defence Procurement Agency, has entrusted the firm tranche of the 10-year SYSENV contract to Airbus Defence and Space and its four partners, for the production of the “SI GEODE4D” information system for the French Armed Forces.

This system is an essential component of the “GEODE4D” programme (geography, hydrography, oceanography and meteorology for defence) and will be available via a single and secure portal. It will allow all Ministry of Defence actors to access and share the same geophysical environment data and select and present them in a coherent way, according to the “one card for all” principle.

“This programme shows the confidence of the DGA in Airbus and its partners for the construction of this information system for the French Armed Forces,” said François Lombard, Head of the Intelligence Business Cluster at Airbus Defence and Space. “One of the major challenges for the “SI GEODE4D”, which can truly be qualified as the active digital map of the 21st century, is also to assist our armed forces with their digital transformation.”

It is vital to reinforce the ability to manage information and intelligence for early threat detection and identification. To provide an appropriate response to these varied and constantly changing threats, an accurate understanding of the geophysical environment is crucial for deployed forces. In future, the “SI GEODE4D” system, consisting of various services and applications, will provide the armed forces with an interoperable, coherent and shared vision of the geophysical environment, consistent with the NATO REP concept (Recognised Environmental Picture).

The consortium is headed by Airbus Defence and Space and built around four innovative and specialised partner companies: Magellium for geography; Météo France International for meteorology, hydrography and oceanography; Bertin for the tool providing decision-making aids; and Deloitte for change management.

The contract also includes the refurbishment of the geographical and meteorological–oceanographic data production centres in Creil, Haguenau and Toulouse. In particular, this refurbishment is designed to meet the need for the increased volume and transmission rates involved in the visualisation of all the environmental data on the future GEODE4D portal.

Source: Airbus

Tallinn, Estonia, 7 November 2017 – FFSCat – providing complementary data to the Sentinel fleet –wins the 2017 Copernicus Masters, the international competition on innovative solutions for business and society based on Earth observation (EO) data.

Small satellites are a cost-effective way to test new EO concepts. FSSCat is a future-oriented satellite mission, consisting of two federated 6U Cubesats. It supports the Copernicus Land and Marine Environment services by measuring soil moisture, ice extent and thickness, and detecting melting ponds over ice, using a state-of-the-art dual microwave payload as well as a multi-spectral optical payload. FSSCat will be the precursor of a constellation of federated small EO satellites connected by radio and optical inter-satellite links.

“Since the beginning of the competition in 2011 we have had exciting challenges. I am especially delighted that the winner of the overall competition is taking the challenge to new heights benefiting from the Copernicus Masters,” explains Dr Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, at the awards ceremony in Tallinn, Estonia. “The Copernicus Masters competition has once again clearly demonstrated its potential to drive the innovative use of Earth observation data and promote the use of Copernicus data to new user groups“.

13 more Challenge winners were also recognised during the Awards Ceremony by high-ranking industry and institutional representatives, such as the European Commission (EC), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), T-Systems International GmbH, Stevenson Astrosat Ltd., CGI, the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), Satellite Applications Catapult Ltd. and AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, the organiser of the Copernicus Masters.

“We’re especially proud to have witnessed a constant rise in young entrepreneurs involved in commercialising EO applications and services. I am very confident that this growth will continue to provide novelties, especially in regards to the launch of further satellites, such as the Sentinel-2B in March and the Sentinel-5P just recently.”, declares Managing Director Thorsten Rudolph from AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, the organiser.

EO and big data from Copernicus hold huge potential for the creation of cutting-edge products and services. Many industries and areas of public interest benefit from the progress of the Copernicus programme. In this year’s Copernicus Masters edition, prizes worth more than EUR 1.5 million were awarded in topic-specific challenges, powered by a number of world-class partners. The close cooperation with institutional, industrial and regional partners promotes the development of high-tech products and services for Europe on a global scale. Additionally, the Copernicus Accelerator programme – funded by the EC – ensures customised business development support for 50 Copernicus Masters finalists during the next two years.

The Copernicus Masters 2017 Awards Ceremony took place in front of an international audience during the European Space Week 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia – as part of the Satellite Masters Conference & Horizon 2020 Space Info Day.

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21 November 2017. EARSC published today its position paper on Earth Observation Services Industry Internationalisation & Economic Diplomacy.

European companies offering Earth Observation (EO) products and services see growth in export business as a major target for the next few years. But most are small or micro-sized and, as a result of their scale, face strong barriers for international business. A European effort on Economic Diplomacy can help companies overcome these barriers.

Alongside the strong industrial competences, the European Copernicus programme is seen as being a major asset to drive growth for Europe. It is a major policy tool by which policy makers can help industry gain competitive advantage for Europe and help drive business growth. Many countries are watching this European effort and at the same time are striving to develop their own competing assets. As Copernicus becomes fully operational, now is the time to take advantage of this European flagship programme in the global market, before others have time to react.

The free and open data policy gives a great deal of diplomatic credit to Europe. But this policy helps non-European companies as much as European ones. If the European Union (EU) is to take full advantage of the investment in Copernicus then a concerted effort is necessary between public and private actors.

In recognition and anticipation, companies are encouraging EARSC to increase its activities with the goal to help them develop new business in international markets. EARSC is ready to play a key role on behalf of its members and welcomes the increased focus from the European Commission (EC) on this same goal. One step could be to establish an Internationalisation Office to act as a source and focus for expertise available to both industry and to the engaged public stakeholders.

Download the position paper on Internationalisation

A new map was released detailing croplands worldwide in the highest resolution yet, helping to ensure global food and water security in a sustainable way.

The map establishes that there are 1.87 billion hectares of croplands in the world, which is 15 to 20 percent—or 250 to 350 million hectares (Mha)—higher than former assessments. The change is due to more detailed understanding of large areas that were never mapped before or were inaccurately mapped as non-croplands.

Earlier studies showed either China or the United States as having the highest net cropland area, but this study shows that India ranks first, with 179.8 Mha (9.6 percent of the global net cropland area). Second is the United States with 167.8 Mha (8.9 percent), China with 165.2 Mha (8.8 percent) and Russia with 155.8 Mha (8.3 percent). Statistics of every country in the world can be viewed in an interactive map.

The study was led by USGS and is part of the Global Food Security-Support Analysis Data @ 30-m Project. The map is built primarily from Landsat satellite imagery with 30-meter resolution, which is the highest spatial resolution of any global agricultural dataset.

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by Pat Brennan for NASA Earth News. Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 22, 2017, published on Space Daily.

A new NASA tool links changes in sea level in 293 global port cities to specific regions of melting land ice, such as southern Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula. It is intended to help coastal planners prepare for rising seas in the decades to come.

All coastal cities will see some impacts of global sea level rise. But the new tool shows that, for example, New York City is more strongly affected by melting ice in northeastern Greenland than in southwestern Greenland; while Sydney has a greater risk from the rapidly melting Antarctic Peninsula than from East Antarctica.

A paper describing the new tool, titled “Should coastal planners have concern over where land ice is melting?,” was recently published in the journal Science Advances. The research team is Eric Larour, Erik Ivins and Surendra Adhikari of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Melting ice and rising ocean temperatures contribute about evenly to global sea level rise today. Individual cities are also affected by local conditions such as land sinking. Other Web-based resources such as the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit address some of these issues, but the new NASA tool is the only resource to match specific melting ice locations with their effects on the world’s ports.

Water from melted ice on land doesn’t spread evenly across the world’s oceans because of a gravitational push-pull between ice and ocean. As a melting glacier or ice sheet dwindles, it loses mass, causing its local gravitational pull on nearby ocean water to diminish.

Seawater that had been pulled toward the ice by the force of gravity flows away – in other words, sea level drops in the vicinity of a melting glacier but rises farther away. When this spatial pattern can be attributed to a given glacier or ice sheet, it is known as a sea level fingerprint.

To calculate this and other influences on sea level such as Earth’s rotation, Larour and his colleagues used a dynamic mathematical formula called the adjoint method, which is used in seismic and meteorological studies.

The method enables fast computation of the sensitivity of a model’s output to its inputs – in this case, the sensitivity of sea level to ice melting. They used the method with JPL’s well-tested computer model of ice sheet melting, the Ice Sheet System Model, to develop their new tool, called Gradient Fingerprint Mapping.

Users of the tool need no specialized training or extreme computer power; they simply download it, input data or projections of ice loss, and let it evolve the shifting ice and water patterns forward into the future. The result: a detailed profile of the sensitivity of sea level at any of these cities to changes in ice anywhere in the world.

Calculations of sea level fingerprints have been made in previous studies but tended to be cumbersome and spatially coarse, Larour said. The new tool provides an overall mechanism for rapidly computing high-resolution results using a variety of potential data sets.

Gradient Fingerprint Mapping is not dependent on a particular climate change scenario, Larour said. “You can apply the method to any type of melting scenario that you want.” That means it will retain its utility as improved projections of ice loss become available in the future.

The computations show that the specific location of mass loss in Greenland is crucial, as it greatly affects the local sea level predictions for many major coastal cities in North America and Europe. The spatial details of Antarctic melting are important for areas south of the equator in South America, Africa and South Asia.

Among some intriguing results, Larour said, are those for New York, London and Oslo. Greenland’s northeastern ice stream was shown to have an outsized effect on New York’s local sea level, but the island’s southern glaciers had little influence. London was more strongly affected by Greenland’s northwestern and western glaciers. And Norway is so close to Greenland, the island’s gravitational fingerprint is contributing to sea level decrease in Oslo.

The authors note that ocean dynamics can accelerate or offset the changes in sea level from gravitational fingerprints – particularly in New York, where the contribution of melting ice to accelerated sea level rise is minor compared to other sources.

“This is really a new capability,” Larour said. “Now a coastal planner can understand and see how the melting or growing of a given ice sheet could be detrimental or beneficial to a specific location.”

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The French company PlanetObserver, specialized in geospatial data production, has just finalized the new PlanetSAT Updates imagery basemap of the United States and Mexico. Processed with fresh and cloudless Landsat 8 source data, this new basemap covers more than 10 million square kilometers at 15-meter resolution. With an advanced natural color imagery processing, this high quality mapping product provides up-to-date and detailed geographic information, perfect for 1:50,000 scale mapping.

Key user benefits of the new PlanetSAT Updates basemap are:

  • Up-to-date and reliable geographic information data, available immediately,
  • Plug-and-play product, ready-to-use in all professional applications,
  • Flexible licensing and pricing models.

PlanetSAT Updates basemap is a unique backdrop solution that brings strong added value to many commercial and military applications, ranging from flight simulation, geo-intelligence and mission preparation solutions, geographic information systems, to mapping applications such as web-based mapping solutions.

The production of PlanetSAT Updates basemap of the United States and Mexico is part of a comprehensive annual maintenance program set up by PlanetObserver in 2016. All new PlanetSAT Updates productions are merged into PlanetSAT Global imagery basemap. Users benefit from constantly refreshed data, perfect to develop new applications and efficient services serving a wide variety of markets.

Laurent Masselot, CEO of PlanetObserver said, “The new PlanetSAT Updates basemap of the United States and Mexico fulfills customers’ expectations, specifically for those based in North America, a market that we target in partnership with East View Geospatial. We are excited to offer an efficient and unique mapping product with advanced color balance that will improve user experience.

To find out more on PlanetSAT Updates basemap of the United States and Mexico, visit PlanetObserver website at www.planetobserver.com.

About PlanetObserver
PlanetObserver offers a full range of value-added geospatial products: PlanetSAT range of global imagery basemaps, PlanetDEM global and accurate Digital Elevation Models, and on-demand service for Very High Resolution imagery and orthophotography. All products are developed internally, backed up by PlanetObserver know-how in geospatial data processing and 30 years of technological expertise. PlanetObserver geospatial data are perfect for numerous commercial, military and consumer applications, ranging from web-mapping to 2D and 3D visualization and simulation solutions, GIS tools, cartographic mapping to audio-visual production.
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Contact : PlanetObserver – 25 bd Gergovia – 63000 Clermont-Ferrand – France
Phone : (+33) 04 73 44 19 00 – info@planetobserver.com – www.planetobserver.com

Warsaw, 23/11/2017. CloudFerro – Polish technology company – won an open tender organized under the Copernicus program. It has defeated the European market leaders, won a € 1.3 million contract and will provide an innovative solution for the European Center for Medium-Term Forecasting (ECMWF).

Hybrid cloud from Poland

ECMWF is an international organization for weather forecasting and climate analysis. In May this year, it announced the creation and operation of a satellite data acquisition and processing system for climate change monitoring (Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) for which it is responsible within the framework of Copernicus – the European Earth Observation Programme. Aligned with the European Cloud Computing Strategy, adopted by the European Commission, the Copernicus strategy foresees an incremental and fast adoption of cloud based infrastructures. In line with these aims, and taking into consideration the huge volumes of data needed to be transferred into the system, it has been decided to host the CDS on a fully managed On-premises Private Cloud with an additional Public Cloud service to allow for further growth – the Hybrid Cloud solution. The data repository will be made available to a fully managed local private cloud with additional public cloud service, allowing for further growth. Twelve companies, including European market leaders, participated in an open tender where quality and price of the solution were of equal importance. CloudFerro’s hybrid cloud – a combination of a private and public cloud – proved to be the best and the Polish company signed a contract with ECMWF worth 1.3 million euros. The contract has been signed for 15 months with the possibility of extending it and increasing the scope of services provided by CloudFerro.

Innovative and reliable

We have proposed an innovative cloud solutions, which have been successfully used by customers in Poland and abroad. By winning the tender we have confirmed the highest quality of our technology and services based on it. It is more valuable for us to have achieved this by competing with European market leaders. It also shows that our solutions perfectly meet the needs articulated in the European Cloud Computing Strategy emphasizes Maciej Krzyżanowski, CEO of CloudFerro.

Thanks to the CloudFerro technology, ECMWF will use its own private cloud while having access to the public cloud at eocloud.cloudferro.com, created by the Polish company. Both solutions are based on OpenStack’s open source cloud-based system and are entirely managed by CloudFerro. The reliability and flexibility of the solution offered is extremely important since it will be at the heart of the C3S infrastructure. The system is designed to provide a consolidated view and point of access to climate data distributed over multiple data suppliers. All C3S data will be catalogued in the CDS, and augmented with quality information that allows data users to easily appraise, discover and select appropriate data. The private cloud at ECMWF will have about 1 PetaByte (1 000 TeraBytes) of storage space linked to the computing environment.

EOCloud – the biggest and the best

The unique base of satellite data combined with the fast computing cloud – EO Cloud – has been created by CloudFerro as a result of a bid for the Earth Observation Innovaitive Platform Testbed (EO IPT). The company won it jointly with Polish Creotech Instruments SA and German Brockmann Consult in late 2015 as a consortium member responsible for technology development. It is one of the biggest and best cloud solutions on the market. CloudFerro’s repository has recently reached 5 PB – it is an equivalent of disk space of ca. 5000 laptops – with daily receipt of 15 to 25 TB of new data.

EO Cloud has nearly 5 million satellite imagery products from Earth observations made by European satellites within Copernicus project. It provides Sentinel 1 radar observations, transmits multiple optical images of Sentinel 2 and delivers meteorological observations of Sentinel 3 satellites. The EO Cloud also includes historical data from Landsat, Envisat and Sentinel satellites. All data may be searched in a simple, quick and convenient way at https://finder.eocloud.eu and viewed with http://apps.eocloud.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser

Should you need any further information regarding CloudFerro’s products and services, please do not hesitate to contact Maciej Krzyżanowski: mkrzyzanowski@cloudferro.com

21 November 2017. Innovative British Space Company prepares for launch of next prototype satellite.

British ‘New Space’ pioneer Earth-i today announced that it has ordered the first five satellites from SSTL (Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd) for its new Earth Observation (EO) constellation.

Earth-i is building the first constellation in the world able to provide full-colour video – and the first European-owned constellation able to provide both video and still images.

This constellation will be a major leap forward for the Earth Observation industry providing a number of innovative capabilities including:

  • The provision of high-frame rate images with resolutions better than one metre for any location on Earth.
  • The ability to film moving objects such as vehicles, vessels and aircraft in ultra-high-definition colour video.
  • Revisiting the same location multiple times per day with agile satellites that can be pointed to image specific areas of interest.
  • Rapid tasking of satellites to take images or video, and fast data download within minutes of acquisition.

Footage recorded by Earth-i’s fleet of satellites will be available for analysis within minutes of being taken and will improve decision-making and response times in a wide variety of scenarios from change detection to object identification, from disaster response to infrastructure monitoring.

The creation of Earth-i’s constellation starts with the imminent launch of its pre-production prototype satellite which was also designed and manufactured in partnership with SSTL. This prototype will demonstrate and prove technology and processes for the future constellation including tasking, data downlinks to ground stations, image quality and video from space. The five SSTL satellites ordered today are planned to be launched in 2019.

Welcoming the signing of the contract and the imminent launch of the prototype, Science Minister Jo Johnson said:

“Some of Britain’s most exciting commercial opportunities are in the thriving space sector and it’s great to see two home-grown companies joining forces to lead the world on Earth Observation technologies. The Government is investing record amounts in science and innovation and is committed to growing our share of the global space market. The upcoming Industrial Strategy will build on our strengths and capabilities as a nation, and projects like this show what we can achieve.”

Earth-i is at the forefront of an era known as New Space which is being driven by commercial organisations that are able to:

  • Improve investment and trading decisions.
  • Monitor and track their assets more cost-effectively.
  • Track changes or activities in critical locations.
  • Predict future events with more certainty.

Richard Blain, CEO of Earth-i, said: “SSTL is our long-term supply partner and today’s order is a key milestone for the deployment of our constellation. We’re on track and in countdown mode to the imminent launch of our prototype satellite. This new satellite, and today’s announcement, mark significant progress on the way to a step-change in how Governments and industry use new types of data from space to make better, more effective and timely decisions to improve our daily lives.”

The origin of Earth-i’s constellation lies in the Carbonite 1 technology demonstrator satellite launched by SSTL in July 2015 and still fully operational. The batch of production satellites ordered by Earth-i will be based on the second prototype satellite about to be launched into orbit, but will incorporate significant additional enhancements already in development by SSTL for Earth-i.

SSTL is a world-leading company in the design, build and launch of small satellites. It has pioneered the reduction in the size and cost of satellites making a new era of commercial satellite constellations possible.

SSTL’s Managing Director Sarah Parker said: “Together SSTL and Earth-i are creating something truly special: a major leap forward in capabilities for Earth Observation from space.

“Earth-i has the team and the technology to deliver on their goals and SSTL’s satellite technology will be a foundation stone for Earth-i’s future success in the emerging market for planetary big data.”