The satellite industry is expanding with new players and new satellites now and in the near future. Because imagery collected from satellites is such an important part of what we do at Satelytics, we thought it might be informative to discuss new options and their potential impact in a Satelytics Insider article.

An Argentinean company called Satellogic plans to add another 40 satellites this year to its current fleet of 13. Their Aleph-1 constellation, 10 satellites of which were launched this past November, captures 1-meter resolution multispectral imagery and increases revisit time of any point of interest to four times a day. Aiming to drive down data costs, Satellogic’s goal is to have an impressive full constellation of 300 spacecraft by 2025.

Airbus kicked off their next satellite constellation with the launch of Pléiades Neo 3 and its accompanying secondary satellites on April 28. The Pléiades Neo constellation will be comprised of four identical satellites, with Pléiades Neo 4 being launched this summer and the rest in 2022. Each satellite in the constellation will add half a million square kilometers per day at a 30-centimeter native resolution of multispectral imaging. The full constellation will reportedly have the ability to visit any point on Earth at least twice a day.

In the developing stages are up-and-comers Wyvern, Inc. and HyperSat. Canadian-based Wyvern announced the launch of three hyperspectral cube satellites, slated for 2022. Polish HyperSat plans to launch a total of six hyperspectral satellites, the first of which tentatively being launched in 2023. HyperSat’s satellites are being designed to capture data in the short-wave infrared spectrum with a ground sample distance of 6 meters.

As satellite technology advances and more companies offer satellite services, image capture revisit frequencies will increase and data costs will be driven down with supply catching up to increased demand.

What does this mean for Satelytics' clients? This will allow Satelytics’ customers to better take advantage of all our services and allow us to expand the number of industries we serve.