Imagery and Sensing

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) selected 10 companies to compete for task orders under a potential five-year, $290 million contract seeking commercial data and analytic services that monitor and assess global economic, environmental, and military activity. NGA announced the award on Sept. 13. Airbus Group’s Airbus U.S. Space & Defense business, Booz Allen Hamilton, BlackSky Technologies, BlueHalo, CACI, Electromagnetic Systems, Maxar...

Japanese startup Synspective has had a busy summer as the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) company ramps up its constellation deployment. In June, Synspective announced a $44 million Series C round, and it became Rocket Lab’s largest launch customer to date, purchasing a block of 10 launches. Last month, Synspective saw the launch of its fifth...

Iceye will see its persistent monitoring, and natural catastrophe solutions used in Greece thanks to a new contract win. It has signed a contract for the Greek National Satellite Space Project Axis 1.2 (radar program) for the Greek Space Agency and Greek Ministry of Digital Governance, together with the European Space Agency (ESA). The contract...

NASA has selected eight companies to provide commercial satellite data to support the agency’s Earth science research. NASA announced the Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition Program On-Ramp1 Multiple Award contract on Sept. 6 with a maximum cumulative value of $476 million.  BlackSky, Iceye US, MDA, Pixxel, Planet, Satellogic, Teledyne Brown Engineering, and Tomorrow.io were selected. Under...

Iceye is making further inroads into the lucrative insurance market. Aon, a global professional services firm, has expanded its data licensing agreement to include Iceye’s Flood Insights data globally and Wildfire Insights data for the US. The two companies announced the deal, Sept. 4. Aon will incorporate Iceye’s near real-time flood and wildfire data into...

Arianespace launched the final mission for the original Vega rocket on Sept. 4, launching the Copernicus Sentinel-2C satellite.  Vega was in service for 12 years with 20 successful flights. It will be replaced by the upgraded Vega-C launcher, which is expected to return to flight by the end of this year. The rocket debuted in...

Satellite imagery company BlackSky will execute a reverse stock split to raise its share price, the company announced Wednesday.  BlackSky’s shareholders approved the 1-for-8 reverse split during an annual meeting on Sept. 4. The split will be effective at 4:15 p.m. ET on September 6. Over the past six months, BlackSky’s stock has traded between $1.50...

Telespazio will play a key role in an ambitious new space project in Italy which will see the creation of Italy’s first national center for the development of satellite navigation skills and technologies. It has won a new contract from the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to be the prime contractor on this project. The ‘National...

Nuview has selected Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) to develop the pathfinder satellite bus for its LiDAR demonstration satellite.  Nuview, which emerged from stealth mode in 2023, plans to build the first commercial LiDAR satellite constellation to provide continually updatedc 3D elevation data of the Earth’s land surface. The company says that space-based LiDAR can capture...

Berlin-based UP42 is joining forces with Planet Labs to improve the data offerings it can offer customers on its an Earth Observation (EO) platform. This collaboration aims to significantly expand UP42’s optical data portfolio with the integration of Planet SkySat, a large constellation of high resolution EO satellites. With the deal, Planet joins Umbra, ICEYE,...