Imagery and Sensing

Planet’s satellite data informs sugarbeet crop monitoring under a new contract between Planet partner SatAgro and American Crystal Sugar Company. Sugarbeet is a root crop with a high concentration of sucrose that is processed into sugar. American Crystal Sugar is a grower-owned cooperative and is the largest beet sugar producer in the U.S.  Under the contract,...

Iceye now has the capability to offer 25 cm resolution for its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. The new feature announced Wednesday is called “Dwell Precise” and it is based on the 1200 MHz radar bandwidth,which is the maximum that commercial satellites are allowed to use. The company said this capability combines high quality data...

Planet has released its Forest Carbon Monitoring product, a new quarterly dataset for monitoring forest growth and change. The company said this data will help establish voluntary carbon markets and help governments implement policies to reduce deforestation and sequester carbon.  The company said the product can help customers comply with the new EU Deforestation Regulation...

Maxar Intelligence opened a new London office this week as the headquarters for its international government business as it aims to increase its global presence.  The London office will also serve as a hub for Maxar’s enterprise business in Europe, which serves customers in industries like mapping, energy and telecommunications. The Maxar Intelligence headquarters remains...

Amini has unveiled details of a key new product launch as it looks to bring the power of satellite tech to its customers, mainly farmers across Africa. It is launching Amini Lite, a lightweight version of the Amini Platform designed to make critical geospatial datapoints on Africa and the Global South quickly and easily accessible...

PARIS — SpaceX’s Starshield now looms large over the Earth observation (EO) market as industry players look to grow revenues in a market that has not always lived up to the potential and hype.  SpaceX announced plans for its Starshield business line in late 2022, including building EO satellites to support national security efforts. Then...

NASA awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to design and build the next-generation GeoXO Lightning Mapper (LMX) instruments for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) GeoXO satellites. The baseline contract announced Sept. 18 is valued at approximately $297 million for two instruments with options for two additional instruments. LMX is a single-channel, near-infrared optical instrument...

BlackSky was awarded a seven-figure contract by HEO, an Australian startup specializing in non-Earth imaging (NEI) and analytics. BlackSky will provide imagery of objects in space for space domain awareness, versus images of Earth.  BlackSky announced the contract on Thursday. The company said this deal lets BlackSky leverage unused capacity on its satellites in situations...

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...