Capella Space Wins Five-Year SAR Imagery Purchase Deal from NASA

Artist rendering of the Capella Space third generation satellite, Acadia. Photo: Capella Space

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery provider Capella Space has been awarded a five year blanket purchase agreement (BPA) by NASA‘s Earth Science Division for high-resolution SAR imagery. The agreement will facilitate fixed price call-off contracts valued up to $7 million per call, effective for five years from the date of the agreement, Capella confirmed in an announcement on Thursday.

The sole-source agreement provides NASA with access to Capella’s commercial SAR image products ranging from 0.5 to 1.2 meter ground resolution.

This BPA is funded by the Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in support of NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program. Imagery procured under this agreement will provide NASA’s Earth Science Division with additional perspective for scientific research of Earth’s interconnected systems, enhancing existing NASA datasets.

“NASA is excited for the opportunity to evaluate high resolution SAR data from Capella Space in the context of our Earth Science research, analysis and applications portfolios,” NASA CSDA Program Scientist Dr. Will McCarty said in a statement. “With the advent of SAR from commercial sources like Capella Space, we are interested how these small satellite constellations can supplement our existing NASA datasets and capabilities. Ultimately, we aim to leverage these data to provide new perspectives on the scientific priorities of the Earth Science Division.”