Atlas to Provide Ground Station Support for BlackSky Satellites

A rendering of BlackSky’s constellation of high-revisit smallsats. Photo: BlackSky

BlackSky has selected Atlas Space Operations to provide telemetry, commanding, and data support for the two satellites recently launched in its Earth imaging satellite constellation. Atlas said in a Friday release it plans to provide support through its ground station sites in Guam and Japan, with its Freedom software. Atlas said through its integration, BlackSky can access data, analytics, and automated scheduling in a single VPN, and the process will enable BlackSky to provide  customers with near real-time data, revisiting a single location up to six times in one day. 

“Atlas Space Operations is a key partner in our promise to make our customers the first to know about areas and events important to them,” said Nick Merski, vice president of Space Operations. “Our companies share similar DNA which includes great people creatively solving important problems.”

BlackSky is in the midst of building out its planned Earth Observation (EO) constellation of 60 satellites for global monitoring. The fifth and sixth satellites were launched by SpaceX into Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) on Aug. 7. BlackSky first announced its work with Atlas in 2018.