Weekly Newsletter · · 4 min read

Last Week in Earth Observation: June 2, 2025

NASA’s FY26 Budget: Cuts, Shifts, and Open Questions for EO

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

Contracts

📈 Strategic Stuff: Partnerships and Announcements

Partnerships

🗞️ Interesting Stuff: More News

Related: The TerraWatch deep-dive on edge computing for EO.

🔗 Click-Worthy Stuff: Check These Out


EO Summit: 1 Week To Go!

Badge printing is underway for ~400 attendees as we get ready to kick off the EO Summit 2025 in New York next week, June 10-11.

After months of working on the agenda, speakers, logistics, and everything in between, seeing these badges come together makes it all feel very real.

What started as an idea to create an application-driven, user-focused EO conference is now coming to life for the second edition, and for the first time in the US. I can’t wait to welcome everyone soon to the conference.

Ticket sales end today (June 2) – register now!

One Discussion Point

Exclusive analysis and insights from TerraWatch


NASA’s FY26 Budget: Cuts, Shifts, and Open Questions for EO

NASA released its FY26 budget request and Earth Science takes a pretty big hit. The request for Earth Science drops to ~$1.03B, down ~52% compared to FY24.

Credit: NASA FY26 budget

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s happening:

Overall, this budget reflects a pretty big shift: fewer big new missions, more emphasis on enabling end-users, and some serious trade-offs on what NASA can afford to fund going forward.

The big open questions now:

And just to quickly visualize the scale of what’s changing, I found this visual online showing NASA’s updated Earth Fleet chart - the red marks show missions either ending or being terminated.

Credit: Richard Eckman

A Note From the Platinum Sponsor of EO Summit: Pixxel

Seeing the Unseen with Pixxel's Hyperspectral Constellation

Pixxel is a fully integrated space data company that has launched the world's highest resolution constellation of hyperspectral satellites. The constellation captures collects 135 bands at a 5-meter GSD with a daily revisit — 50x more detail than traditional systems — unlocking a new set of insights across agriculture, climate, energy, environment, and more.

With three satellites already in orbit, Pixxel delivers real-time, actionable intelligence to help industries and governments detect risks early and make informed decisions. Once fully deployed, the constellation will capture imagery across up to 250 bands in both VNIR and SWIR ranges, with a 40 km swath. Furthermore, Pixxel's Earth Observation Studio Aurora streamlines access, exploration and insight generation from hyperspectral and other Earth Observation datasets.

Pixxel also manufactures spacecrafts in its own facilities and its integrated ecosystem of satellites, software, and manufacturing is advancing its mission of building a health monitor for the planet.

First light from Pixxel’s Firefly revealing the Sundarbans, India and paving the way for advanced forest health monitoring, mangrove stress detection, and data-driven conservation

Until next time,

Aravind.

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