Welcome to a new edition of ‘Last Week in Earth Observation’, containing a summary of major developments in EO from the last week and some exclusive analysis and insights from TerraWatch.
Four Curated Things
Major developments in EO from the past week
💰 Contractual Stuff: Funding, Contracts and Deals
Funding
- EO platform player Privateer announced a strategic investment from Far Eastern Group, a Taiwanese corporation.
Contracts
- Satellogic was awarded a multi-year contract valued at $30M to provide near-daily and ultra-low latency analytics to a strategic defense and security customer;
- SAR data provider Umbra won a contract from the US Space Force to develop a SAR satellite for maritime applications in the Asia-Pacific region;
- The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency awarded a task order focused on feature identification though the Luno A program.
M&A
- Earth Finance, a strategy and financing firm has acquired EO analytics startup Climate Engine that provides environmental and economic data leveraging remote sensing data.
📈 Strategic Stuff: Partnerships and Announcements
Announcements
- Google unveiled Geospatial Reasoning, a research effort that uses generative AI to accelerate geospatial problem solving.
🗞️ Interesting Stuff: More News
- The US budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 calls for a 50% cut to NASA's Earth Science program as well as the closure of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
- The proposal also calls for major cuts to NOAA's climate research and weather satellite programmes.
🔗 Click-Worthy Stuff: Check These Out
- This article on ESA's soon-to-be-launched Biomass mission and how it will enable forest monitoring including carbon estimation and deforestation.
Announcing the NASA Industry Workshop
I am excited to announce that we are partnering with the NASA Earth Science team, who will be hosting an exclusive, invite-only industry workshop on Thursday, June 12 – following the two-day conference in New York.
NASA is taking advantage of the momentum of the EO Summit to connect with end users of NASA’s EO data and build long-term collaboration.
👉 Are you an enterprise user of NASA's EO data or products? Learn more on the website to get an idea of what will happen during the event.
🔗 Interested? Then, submit this form to be considered for an invitation.
EO Summit: Flash Sale
Tickets for the EO Summit are available for a big discount until the end of this week. If you have been on the fence, now is when you can take action.
Until next time,
Aravind.
