Investment in Earth Observation (EO) hit the headlines this week, particularly two announcements from Spain.
Firstly, a consortium of twenty-three Spanish companies, led by Open Cosmos, covering the entire upstream and downstream value chain has come together with an ambition to launch of constellation of 30 EO satellites. The plan, requiring an investment of € 147 million, has been presented to the Spanish Ministry of Industry, within the framework of the Programme for the Promotion of Industrial Competitiveness and Sustainability projects that will be financed from European recovery funds.
Given Spain’s ongoing involved in Copernicus, this is an interesting bold national initiative which is expected to generate a € 500 million turnover by 2026 and create ten percent more quality jobs in the sector. The satellites will combine cameras, artificial intelligence, high bandwidth communication and a novel propulsion system, and are expected to provide an improvement in the temporal resolution of high quality scientific satellite data over the country to support developments in sustainability.
Secondly, the Government of Catalonia, an autonomous region in the northeast of Spain, announced that last week that hoped to launch its first nanosatellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 20th 2021.
The nanosatellite launch, which is also been supported by Open Cosmos, together with Sateliot, will improve 5G connectivity and internet access. It also expected to collect data about the Earth, although a full EO nanosatellite will be the second to be launched in approximately a year. The Catalan government is investing €18 million into this initiative program over the next four years, and it is hoped it generate € 300 million turnover over the same period and create over one thousand jobs.
A second company looking to establish a constellation presence is the Californian based Umbra, an EO start-up, which has recently raised $32 million to continue its ambitions to bring down the costs of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery.
It is currently preparing to launch its first microsatellite this year, to provide high-resolution X-Band SAR imagery with a spatial resolution of 25 centimetres. It aims to create a constellation of these microsatellites in order to create a commercial service. It plans to offer clients free satellite tasking and direct satellite access to gather the data they want, and then download the raw data. It received a licence from NOAA in 2018 to sell this type of imagery commercially and believes it will be the only provider of this type in the USA, giving it a market advantage.
The fourth investment announcement came from the Government of Western Australia who are committing a further $500,000 in Curtin University’s Binar CubeSat programme, having already committed $5.75 million over the last 18 months to enhance the capability and capacity of Western Australia’s space sector. The satellite which can be used for remote sensing, imaging and communications will offer cost-effective manufacturing and launched via the International Space Station (ISS). It has the aim of making space more accessible, and it hopes to launch five satellites during this year and next. If all launch successfully, it will be Australia’s first home grown satellite constellation.
All of these announcements, once again, demonstrate that EO remains a growing industry!
Article source: Pixalytics
Image credit: 123RF Stock Photo
