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
- LiveEO, a German EO-based infrastructure monitoring solution provider, secured a strategic investment from Japan's Kyuden International;
- Privateer, which acquired Orbital Insight last year, announced a strategic investment from Taiwan's Far Eastern Group.
M&A
- Spire completed the sale of its maritime business to commodity intelligence firm Kpler for $233M and used the proceeds to retire all its outstanding debt;
- S&P Global is acquiring OrbComm's AIS business to expand its maritime intelligence offering;
📈 Strategic Stuff: Partnerships and Announcements
Partnerships
- German satellite manufacturer Reflex Aerospace and SAR data provider Umbra are teaming up to providing turnkey SAR satellite systems in Europe;
- The Gabonese space agency has signed an agreement with Star.Vision, a Chinese EO firm to provide of high-resolution (20-30cm) satellite imagery.
🗞️ Interesting Stuff: More News
- The US has canceled the lease for one of its top climate monitoring labs, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies;
- OroraTech opened a US office to expand its wildfire monitoring network;
- IBM and ESA have released the open-source model TerraMind, tipped to be the best performing generative AI model for EO.
🔗 Click-Worthy Stuff: Check These Out
- This article that shows how ESA's EarthCARE mission is making an impact;
- ESA's Biomass mission, expected to be revolutionary for forest monitoring is launching tomorrow, but this piece describes how ground validation is still very essential;
- This piece that discusses the efforts to save decades of scientific data in the US.
EO Summit: Case Studies and Applications
EO Summit 2025 is the place to be if you would like to learn about real-world applications and case studies of Earth observation. It will feature:
🌍 20 real-world case study presentations from both end-users and EO companies, across insurance, finance, agriculture, forestry, energy, utilities and environment
🛰️ 12 panel session with a multidisciplinary group panelists covering various applications of satellite data across industries
Reserve your place before we sell out!
One Discussion Point
Exclusive analysis and insights from TerraWatch
Value Drivers vs Operational Enablers
Value Drivers unlock economic gains with EO, while Operational Enablers enable regulatory compliance through EO.
If you are an EO company, an EO-based analytics firm or an investor trying to navigate the EO space, viewing the market through the two categories of EO use cases mentioned in this infographic could help make sense of things.
Value Drivers
- Deliver clear ROI through cost savings or new value.
- Easier adoption but needs scalable, global solutions.
- Likely exit: acquisition by large enterprises after proving value.
Operational Enablers
- Focused on compliance and environmental reporting.
- Harder adoption, seen as overhead; open data often preferred.
- Likely exit: acquisition by consulting firms for sustainability services.
Scene from Space
One visual leveraging EO
A Unique National Park from Space
Last week was Earth Day, which meant several EO companies published some beautiful snaps of the planet from space. This piece contained a collection of images released by Planet, of which, this one of – Lençóis Maranhenses National Park – is my favourite.
A quick summary from ChatGPT on why this national park is so unique:
Massive Sand Dunes + Freshwater Lagoons: It’s a vast desert-like landscape of white sand dunes, but after the rainy season (typically from May to September), thousands of crystal-clear freshwater lagoons form between the dunes. This rare combination of desert and seasonal water is extremely unusual.
Unique Ecosystem: Despite looking like a desert, it isn’t a true desert — it gets too much rain (~1,200 mm/year).
No Equivalent Elsewhere: There are other dune systems globally (like in Namibia or the Sahara), but none with seasonal rainwater lagoons like Lençóis Maranhenses.
Until next time,
Aravind.
