Three months after the announcement of its sixth member, the PanGeo Alliance continues to expand adding another two new members in its federation: Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary and UrtheCast. The PanGeo Alliance is the first global alliance of Earth Observation satellite operators. With the addition of the new members the alliance counts already eight members from eight different countries: Aquila Space (US), Beijing Space Eye Innovation Technology (China), Dauria Aerospace (Russia), Deimos Imaging (Spain), Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary (Kazakhstan), Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (United Arab Emirates), ST Electronics (Singapore) and UrtheCast).
The alliance provides access to imagery and tasking opportunities from a unique and growing constellation of Earth Observation satellites, operated by its members. The constellation encompasses multispectral imagery in a range of resolutions (from 20 m to 75 cm per pixel), and a daily global imaging capability.
Every PanGeo Alliance member brings its unique capacity to the alliance, contributing to the formation of a multi-capable and diverse constellation.
The current space assets of the two new members and their future plans include:
Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary (KGS) is currently operating two Earth Observation (EO) satellites: the High Resolution (HR) KazEOSat-2 and the Very High Resolution (VHR) KazEOSat-1. In addition the company will soon launch its third EO satellite, the Medium Resolution KazSTSAT (see table below for technical details).
UrtheCast Inc. has installed two cameras on the International Space Station (ISS), which are now fully operational: the Medium Resolution Camera (MRC) Theia and the High-Resolution Camera (HRC) Iris. The UrtheCast’s vision includes a satellite Constellation scheduled for launch in 2019. The constellation will be formed by 16 satellites arranged in pairs, each with a SAR and an Optical satellite flying in formation and providing Very High Resolution (VHR) data.
All PanGeo Alliance members can provide access to the full products portfolio of the whole constellation. PanGeo multi-satellite mission planning gives customers access to imaging from all Alliance satellites as well as a connection to directly request tasked imagery from the operator. As more members are joining the alliance, the available fleet is also expanding providing customers with additional imagery resources and imaging opportunities.
PanGeo coordinates the access to member data catalogues in a seamless way, integrating data visibility and ordering from the entire Alliance archive. Customers benefit from a global network of resellers and a unified access point to new tasking and archive imagery.
Fig.1: The eight current members of the PanGeo Alliance
Fig.2: The current and future Earth Observation fleet of the PanGeo Alliance members (medium-res and high-res sensors only)
Fig.3: The current and future Earth Observation fleet of the PanGeo Alliance members (very-high-res, videos and AIS sensors only)