The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has awarded six companies — BlackSky Technology, HyperSat, Orbital Sidekick, Pixxel, Planet, and Xplore — study contracts for commercial hyperspectral imagery. The NRO will use these study contracts to “explore the potential of commercial hyperspectral imagery,” NRO Director Dr. Chris Scolese said in Wednesday’s announcement.  The contracts are a two-stage effort. The NRO…

Angola has ordered its first Earth observation satellite, Angeo-1, from Airbus Defence and Space. The satellite will be an Airbus S250 optical satellite. Terms of the deal, announced March 3, were not disclosed.  Angola has already developed various applications using satellite imagery from Airbus Defence and Space, such as land use mapping, agriculture monitoring and…

Kleos Space will join Ursa Space Systems’ “Virtual Constellation,” a database of satellite imagery from various imagery and sensing providers. Kleos collects radio frequency (RF) data through its satellite constellation.  Under the agreement announced Tuesday, Ursa will have access to the Kleos Locate intelligence product, which provides the frequency of the detected transmitter, the reception…

Maxar Technologies on Monday said it has been awarded a new contract under the U.S. Army’s One World Terrain (OWT) effort to continue to evolve and add geospatial data for virtual models of the Earth. The Phase 3b contract is for one year and is worth tens of millions of dollars. Maxar has been the…