Earth observation

NewSpace intelligence startup OroraTech, has completed a significant review in its European Space Agency (ESA) InCubed program, paving the way for the delivery of the CubeSat FOREST-3, the company said. FOREST-3 will be the first satellite of a multipurpose nanosatellite constellation with an expected revisit time of 30 minutes by 2026.

In this Space Café Radio – SpaceWatch.Global Senior Editor and Space Café Italy Host Dr. Emma Gatti spoke with Scott Pace, the Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University (USA). Emma met Scott during the 6th PSSI Space Security Conference, held in Prague from the 19th to the 21st of June 2022.

This has been an amazing summer at Instituto Superior Técnico - Tagus Park in Oeiras, Portugal, especially for the energetic, driven, and inspiring people making up the Down 2 Earth Team Project. Under the proposed topic of Space for Non-Space, the team focused on the downstream value chain trying to identify potential gaps and suggesting new ideas to foster the uptake of space data by the non-space sectors. 

Earth observation company Satellite Vu, has partnered with communications company Viasat, to ensure rapid commanding, reception and dissemination of thermal imagery from Satellite Vu’s satellites, the company said. According to the partnership agreement, Viasat will serve as the company’s exclusive ground service provider.

Being part of a growing economy is where you want to be these days. And Space promises to be among one of the fastest growing sectors, with huge spillover potential into other industries. Currently, the space economy has been estimated to be at around 386 billion USD in revenue, and expectations predict it to be at 1 trillion USD by 2040. The outlook is attractive and moving within the space sector one could have the impression of booming space businesses. But are those numbers legitimate?

The Queensland Government and SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) have launched the Queensland Earth Observation (EO) Hub, a partnership for two new Earth observation research projects. The Government and SmartSat CRC are both investing about US $1 million in the project.

As part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth observation FutureEO programme, the agency selected Harmony as the tenth Earth Explorer research mission to help better understand the transport and exchanges of energy and matter within Earth’s complex dynamic system, ESA said.

British Earth observation company, Satellite Vu has signed a second SpaceX launch contract to launch its second satellite, doubling its thermal data collection capacity, the company said.

Dutch optical and in-situ measurement space systems provider cosine’s three-in-one instrument combining hyperspectral and thermal imaging with high-level data processing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities, HyperScout 2, selected for the Australian Kanyini satellite mission, is now ready to be integrated into the spacecraft. The launch of the 6U CubeSat is part of the South Australia Space Sector Strategy 2030.

Ground network services provider KSAT, has joined forces with Earth imaging technology company, Pixxel, to support its work building the world’s highest resolution hyperspectral imaging satellite constellation, KSAT said. The company will provide access to its global ground network to enable Pixxel’s constellation to reveal key data about Earth’s health.