Welcome to the first edition of ‘Last Week in Earth Observation’ in 2024, containing a summary of major developments in EO from the last two weeks and some exclusive analysis and insights from TerraWatch.
In this edition: The Three Types of Earth Observation Products, Global Building Footprints, A List of EO Conferences and EO Summit Early Bird Tickets.
Four Curated Things
Major developments in EO from the past week
1. Contractual Stuff: Funding, Contracts and Deals 💰
Funding
- PierSight, an Indian EO startup building a constellation of satellites with SAR and AIS sensors for maritime surveillance raised $6M in seed funding;
- SynMax, which provides energy and maritime intelligence derived from EO raised $13M, led by Bill Perkins, energy trader and co-founder of SkyFi;
Contracts
- Maxar was awarded a contract by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to provide 3D imagery of the Indo-Pacific region;
- Spire won a contract worth $9.4M from NOAA to provide radio occultation (RO) data for weather forecasting as part of the RO Data Buy delivery order;
- Muon Space, which is building an EO satellite constellation, won a research contract from the US Air Force to provide cloud characterization data;
- BlackSky was awarded a multi-year contract to support the Indonesian Ministry of Defense with data and analytics from its satellites.
2. Strategic Stuff: Partnerships and Announcements 📈
Partnerships
- Dun & Bradstreet, a provider of business data and analytics is collaborating with Climate Engine, a provider of climate analytics derived from EO;
- EO-based sustainability reporting platform Earth Blox has announced its availability on the Google Cloud marketplace;
Announcements
- Sidus Space announced that the company has been granted a licence from NOAA to acquire and distribute panchromatic and shortwave infrared data;
- The NGA is kicking off a new procurement, under a new program called Luno, for unclassified EO data and services for insights into global trends;
- The Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that 2023 was the hottest year on record, with global temperatures close to the 1.5°C limit.
3. Interesting Stuff: More News 🗞️
- Japan launched a new optical reconnaissance satellite for tracking North Korean military activities, while a Chinese launch startup Orienspace launched three Yunyao-1 satellites to acquire RO data;
- Europe, which is going through a launcher crisis, may shift the launch of the much-delayed Sentinel-1C satellite to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to avoid further delays in getting it into orbit;
For context, we have been without data from Sentinel-1B - which experienced a failure in December 2021 - for more than 2 years. So, there is only been roughly half the capacity of what it should have been.
- NASA is making progress on a multibillion-dollar series of Earth science missions amid uncertainty about their funding for the next year.
I am worried that we are heading towards a future in which ‘societally important Earth observation satellites with advanced scientific instruments’ will fight for the same pie of public funding as ‘economically important sovereign EO satellite constellations with redundant data capabilities’.
4. Click-Worthy Stuff: Check These Out 🔗
The rate of deforestation in Brazil's Amazon fell by nearly 50% in 2023 compared to the previous year, data from the Brazilian space agency suggests, although it is on an upward trend in some regions;
This piece on TerraWatch looks back at what happened in EO in 2023 and provides an outlook on what might happen in 2024;
This journal article that dives into building a satellite-based forest inventory in Canada;
This piece that discusses why AI-driven weather forecasting will not replace humans just yet;
This research led by Global Forest Watch, which leverages EO to show how around three-fourths of all industrial fishing vessels are not publicly tracked, and likewise almost a third of all transport and energy vessels.
Credits: Global Fishing Watch (TechCrunch)
Spotlight: EO Summit
A limited number of early-bird tickets for EO Summit are live. Book yours here!
Call for Earth observation companies to become a sponsor for EO Summit. Why sponsor?
Position your company and your EO solution in front of users of EO from different market verticals
- Insurance & Finance, Energy & Utilities, Agriculture & Forestry, Climate
Opportunity to secure a speaking slot to present your EO solution during the industry track sessions.
- A 15-minute presentation on your EO solution and case studies.
One EO Discussion Point
Exclusive analysis and insights from TerraWatch
5. The Three Types of Earth Observation Products
I have spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of EO-derived products we build, how they are adopted and the financial sustainability of the models. Given how fundamental EO is to our lives and the functioning of our economies, I decided to take a pragmatic view of looking at EO and classified them into 3 types of products. These are just some high-level thoughts, I hope to expand on them more over time. So, bear with me.
On a fundamental level, I think there are 3 types of products derived from EO:
Products that are commercial and revenue-driven that fill a data gap and/or solve a business problem - these are usually driven by private and enabled by public investments, with most of their use targeted at businesses;
Examples include monitoring pipelines for leaks, reporting climate risks of assets, vegetation monitoring over power lines etc.
Products that are (free) public goods and impact-driven that help save lives and reduce economic damages - these are usually driven by a combination of public and private investments, and increasingly philanthropic organisations, with most of their use targeted at businesses and individuals;
Examples include daily weather forecasts, air quality metrics, flood maps, global emission levels, sea rise levels etc.
Products that are scientific and research-driven that generally focus on advancing EO or the application of EO in a specific domain - these are usually driven by public investments, with some support from private actors and high-net-worth individuals, predominantly aimed at progressing our understanding of the planet, the biodiversity and our impact on it.
Examples include understanding the science behind wildfires, the evolution of the water and carbon cycles etc.
Earth Observation Conferences 2024
Here is a compilation of global Earth observation, satellite remote sensing, and space conferences in 2024. If you don't find one on the list that is relevant to EO, please submit it via the form on the page. Enjoy!
Scene from Space
One visual leveraging EO
6. An Open Data Repository of Global Building Footprints
Overture Maps Foundation released a data set of 2D building footprints derived from high-resolution satellite imagery, of about 2.3B buildings from around the world, essentially fusing data from OpenStreetMap, Esri Community Maps, and Microsoft Open Building Footprints and Google Open Buildings.
More importantly, the data also includes confidence scores that allow developers to balance the trade-offs between coverage and accuracy to meet their application requirements.
Get 25% Off to Become a Paid Subscriber
Tomorrow (Jan 16) is the last day to take advantage of a 25% discount to become a paid subscriber. What exclusive analysis and insights are in store for you?
- A detailed review of 2023 EO investments - including analysis by segment, startup stage, market vertical and geography, will be published on Jan. 17.
- A deep dive into the state of EO platforms - including analysis of platform segments, commercial landscape and outlook - will be published on Jan. 31.
Until next time,
Aravind.
