Earth observation

Spire Global, a global data service provider and leader AIS data solutions and weather forecasting, announced today the year-over-year results for its maritime business unit. Spire Maritime expanded into Asia and celebrated a four-fold increase in bookings in 2019. It continued to build on its successes after launching in January …

A consortium of Norwegian and Dutch research centres announced on 20 April 2020 hat it has selected satellite integrator NanoAvionics to build two nanosatellites, ‘Birkeland’ and ‘Huygens’. The purchase order is part of a military use of space (MilSpace) project under a bilateral strategic mutual assistance in research and technology …

Ball Aerospace conducted a critical design review (CDR) of the Weather System Follow-on (WSF) satellite mission, which it is building for the U.S. Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC). With CDR concluded, Ball Aerospace begins full production of the satellite.

The Space Dynamics Laboratory announced on 15 April 2020 that satellite operators are flying NASA spacecraft from their homes to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that it had launched a military satellite on the morning (Iranian time) of 22 April 2020 on board a previously unknown satellite launch vehicle the IRGC calls Qassed.

The Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) announced on 20 April 2020 that it had recently signed a contract with Airbus Defence and Space for the development and manufacture of the thermal infrared instrument for the TRISHNA satellite.

A free app that helps people observe social distancing to slow the spread of coronavirus is about to launch.Devised by Lanterne, a UK startup company supported by the European Space Agency (ESA), "Crowdless" uses satellite data and artificial intelligence technologies to identify where people are congregating anywhere in the world.

Nanosatellite manufacturer and mission integrator NanoAvionics, together with the Mexican Space Agency (AEM) and students from the Polytechnic University of Atlacomulco will develop the first nanosatellite for the State of Mexico, (one of most important states of the country), the AtlaCom-1.

PredaSAR, which is building and will operate the world’s largest and most advanced commercially operated Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite constellation, announced the appointment of Col Michael Moran, USAF (Ret.) as Chief Operating Officer and Eric Truitt as Chief Solutions Officer, effective 15 April 2020.

On 15 April 2020, as part of their continuing efforts to contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Axelspace Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan Space Systems (“J-spacesystems”) to promote the use of satellite data in the field of capacity building and human resource developme