Ibadan, 14 May 2024. – Marble Imaging has announced its partnership with Reflex Aerospace to develop the first of up to 200 advanced satellites, towards revolutionizing the Earth Observation industry. The Satellite fleet aims to address the urgent need for Earth Observation capabilities, strengthening sustainability by supplying real-time insights through very-high-resolution (VHR) imagery, Furthermore, Marble Imaging aims to be the leading European EO company capturing images of the entire planet every day in VHR.
Reflex Aerospace will build the initial satellite for Marble Imaging with funding from the German Space Agency at DLR in the form of an award to Marble Imaging, having won the Agency’s small satellite payload competition (‘Kleinsatelliten Nutzlastwettbewerb’). In addition, Marble Imaging’s payload will be hosted on the same platform as IABG Innovation Center’s RAISE (Resilient AI in Space and the Edge), an onboard AI computing cluster customized for robust and safe autonomous space applications.
The instruments for the first satellite are currently under co-development with Marble Imaging’s partner, Scanway. Scanway’s tools will provide global data on the Earth’s surface at a targeted resolution of 0.75-meter Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) in the Visual and Near Infrared (NIR) spectrum and will include a panchromatic band. Likewise, Satellites of the future constellation will feature the same instruments and will also image with Short Wave Infrared (SWIR) bands. The envisioned dual-instrument solution also aims to maximize synergies with the European Copernicus program.
Speaking on the project, Robert Hook, CEO of Marble Imaging, said, “Our planet is facing significant challenges due to human activities impacting Earth. It’s crucial to understand these effects for a sustainable future. To do this, we need a big data approach to monitor these changes and develop solutions. But currently, there’s a gap in providing the necessary
very high-resolution images essential for such applications.”
