Archives: Activities Portfolio

Objectives of the Product

The objective of this activity is to develop a new concept where the Mission Planning function is offered as a service.

MPSSERV is conceived to be a product born as an evolution of the GMV’s commercial Mission Planning System product called Flexplan. Flexplan is a consolidated and stable product which currently supports both operational and scientific missions including: Earth observation, Interplanetary, Exploration, Telecom and Navigation missions and can additionally support the management of ground operations.

---

Customers and their Needs

There are three distinct customer groups that could be interested in these kind of mission planning services:

• Satellite operators: they can use it to procure complete ground segments to different providers, but there is a trend in the market to procure multi-mission COTS and services to minimize procurement and operational cost and risk.
• Space Agencies: most of those have their own ground systems but they could be interested in subcontracting operations services.
• “New Space” players: they intend to develop very low cost systems and to have low risk developments and/or procurements. They are looking for technologies and capabilities mature enough to guarantee their purposes without any investment, and of course, without any risk in terms of functionalities or operations.

---

Targeted customer/users countries

There are no restriction in terms of countries of the targeted users. However, European Union countries, GB, USA and Asia countries like Japan, India and South Korea are good candidates.

---

Product description

MPSSERV product is based on the evolution of Flexplan product due to the following reasons:

• Flexplan is a consolidated product in the area of Mission Planning Systems
• Flexplan is currently deployed for different operators. Different operator’s means different concept of operations and different concept of operations implies that the degree of flexibility of the product to cope with future users is reached. Consequently, the product is well proven.
• Up to now, Flexplan has been used as a classic system that has been deployed in the proprietary infrastructure of the operator. For this kind of deployment, the current paradigm server-client with a client deployed in the user’s infrastructure has been considered acceptable.
• Flexplan currently offers a strong set of functionality for the generation of operational plans that can be used “as is” to be offered as a service. This set functionality constitutes the business layer of the product that basically is not modified as part of this proposal.
• Flexplan currently offers a good level of automation.

Three major evolutions of the system are necessary to offer the Flexplan functionalities as a service: the generalization of the existing services, the design and development of a new front-end graphic interface web based, and the full automation of the planning generation process.

The final objective is to simplify the interaction of the users with the product in terms of:

• No special hardware requirements in the client size. A browser running in any operative system is enough to operate the system
• Open API to access to the main functionalities that allows to develop a simple front-end to consume such services.

The figure below is a functional block diagram of the product as it currently is that identifies its main functional modules and external interfaces.

The main functional modules are described in the table below.

---

Added Value

MPSSERV product offers the following features over the current Flexplan and other products similar:

• New API on the server side in order to publish services that can be available potential users.
• New front-end User Interface covering most of the Flexplan components that can be offered as a service. This new front-end must be web based (operated by using a web browser) as it is considered essential to offer Mission Planning functionality as a service.

The concept of offering the Mission Planning as service is depicted in the following figure. The service can go from placing an engineer in the operational environment at customer premises performing the operations up to assuming the full operations of the system by the contractor. Between these two concepts, it exists intermediate service concepts: from isolated MP functions, remote operation, monitoring, etc.
There is no other supplier in the market capable to offer the MPS as services and this concept could fill a market niche.

---

Current status

The activity is currently in its initial stage and the Software Requirements are being defined.

Objectives of the Product

AFFRESCO addresses the provision of a high-data-rate (more than 100 Gbps) satellite optical transport network for linking future Earth observation (EO) satellite constellations, to give a low-latency path to distributed optical ground stations. It does this by integrating both the ground and space segment optical free space communication hardware and network layers.

AFFRESCO advances a satellite constellation SDN modem designed for real-time data transport, combined with ultra-lightweight and mass-producible optical inter-satellite and direct-to-Earth link terminal in preparation for an in-orbit demonstration.

In addition to the hardware and networking, AFFRESCO also critically addresses the concept of operations needed to deliver a reliable and commercial service level agreement for optical data transport.

The goal is to support the seamless transfer of data from the space segment to ground – data streaming – for increased access to high-resolution and low-latency EO data.

---

Customers and their Needs

Future EO networks and constellations are looking for lower latency and reliable delivery of data to allow near-real-time actionable insights, in addition to the vast increase in data being collected by high-resolution and multi-spectral science instruments. Current instruments have to discard, or highly compress, most of the data collected due to the downlink bottleneck. This happens in a ground station network that is already at capacity with more than 40 000 EO satellite downlink passes per day, resulting in prohibitive costs for associated ground station services and driving up the costs of EO-based products and services. If the future of the EO market is for commoditised services and integrated applications, then a paradigm shift in efficiencies throughout the entire data chain is required.

AFFRESCO addresses future novel EO and telecom constellation dynamic topologies with inter-satellite links to enable continuous real-time access to an optical ground segment, with link fault-tolerant routing. This also increases the downlink time, enabling higher downlink time and ultimately throughput and reliability with fewer globally distributed optical ground stations. The additional benefit is optimising terrestrial transport for distributed storage in data centres.

The hardware to flexibly adapt to the customers’ needs and different topologies is designed to be software-definable, so it can adapt even after it is deployed to meet evolving service needs.

---

Targeted customer/users’ countries

AFFRESCO covers the provision of service and hardware.

The space segment hardware is currently being developed for customers in both Europe and the USA.

The optical ground segment service is being rolled out in conjunction with our ground station operator partner which has the largest global ground station network.

---

Product description

AFFRESCO has two key hardware components for the space segment end-user customers. That space segment hardware is developed to work with mBryonics’ optical ground station terminal.

The modem allows for intra- and inter-satellite network switching to grant the handover of multiple optical satellite terminals and enable real-time optical transport networking of constellations for low-latency data transfer.

The fibre-coupled optical terminal uses a low-mass gimbal for course mechanical beam steering with a field of view for different satellite network topologies, including low-elevation optical downlinks. The fibre coupling allows the use of fibre-coupled photonics, enabling multiplexing for scalable data channels to be added as needed by the end user.

The image above shows the product/system architecture on a high level, highlighting the main system building blocks.

---

Added Value

Particularly for EO, augmenting ground station visibility with inter-satellite links dramatically increases throughput and enables real-time data access. This also allows for improved link reliability with dynamic optical transport routing, traffic coordination, and orchestration. This leads to reduced ground segment infrastructure CAPEX and reduced terrestrial long-haul OPEX by routing data to the ground station closest to the data centre.

---

Current status

AFFRESCO officially kicked off in 2019 and is rapidly advancing years of research and pre-development work in preparation for an in orbit demonstration.

Objectives of the Product

Marine insurers and reinsurers have a growing need to better monitor and assess risk accumulations. Skytek currently operates the REACT platform. This software offers a service that provides estimates of marine hull risk accumulations based on vessel traffic information provided by S-AIS/AIS technologies.

Processing power is growing nowadays, image analysis and object detection techniques are rapidly improving, and high-resolution satellite data and aerial imagery availability and coverage are also increasing. That is why it has become feasible to provide improved data intelligence for marine insurance and reinsurance organisations that are based on Earth observation (EO) data.

The activity extended the existing risk picture by using satellite data and modern image analysis combined with machine learning techniques. The result supports analysis of risk accumulation of cargo within ports which can range from both containers stored portside, through to car storage terminals combined with cargo on board vessels currently docked at ports worldwide. The solution supports seamless tasking of high-resolution commercial EO satellites combined with open sources such as Sentinel 2 to provide the underlying images, which are then analysed to extract intelligence regarding cargo accumulation and made available to end users as an ongoing service.

---

Customers and their Needs

This product targets insurance, reinsurance and brokers organisations that deal with marine insurance. To support the marketing and distribution of this product, Skytek has signed a partnership with Aon, one of the biggest global insurers.

Through Aon, a new consultancy service based on Skytek’s REACT system expanded with the capabilities of this CPA project. This service now allows insurers and reinsurers to visualise the precise location of their insured risks alongside crucial vessel and cargo accumulation and risk information. Aon’s experts work closely with the insurers and reinsurers to analyse the potential accumulations and make specific recommendations to their portfolio for efficient reinsurance programmes and underwriting insights.

One of the primary concerns for the marine insurance industry is monitoring the risk accumulations in ports. Ports steadily increasing their throughput and growing cargo vessel capacities have a big impact on risk accumulation. The increasing risk of climate/weather-induced catastrophic events also compounds this problem.

Through their global networks of clients, Aon is actively promoting and introducing the concept and platform of Cargo Port Analysis using EO and GNSS.

---

Targeted customer/users’ countries

The product targets insurance and reinsurance companies globally. Using this platform is now more important than ever for the insurance industry, with an ever-increasing throughput of cargo and containers in ports worldwide as well as an increased severity of storms and weather patterns due to climate change. Providing a near-real-time insight into cargo exposures and risks at major ports worldwide, on an ongoing basis and post-catastrophe, allows insurance organisations to better plan and quickly understand potential liabilities.

---

Product description

The system provides a web-accessible and external API cloud-based SAAS platform. Information on potential port or fleet liability can be provided in near real-time based on past vessel history, vessels attending a specific port terminal, their expected cargo loads, and quantity as well as value combined with on-port cargo value analytics. This functionality is achieved through data-fusion of multiple data sources into common unified models, to create a large set of mineable geospatial data presented in a user-friendly multi-aspect HTML interface.

The new CPA component, deployed as a new component within the REACT platform uses a combination of the latest Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, EO, GNSS technology and big data analytics techniques, which are used to provide a cargo port analysis solution directly relevant to marine insurance and reinsurance organisations. The system integrates the tasking of satellites to take frequent high-resolution imagery, at over 200 major port locations worldwide, in which the majority of cargo worldwide passes through.

---

Added Value

The insurance companies base their decisions on models, known as Catastrophe or CAT models, which are currently provided by a few specialist companies. None of these models and modelling software currently use satellite EO data as a source of information. The models are very high-level in nature and usually provide a large margin of error in the risk exposure calculations for cargo within a port.

By using EO and GNSS, Cargo Port Analysis brings added value by providing a far more accurate risk exposure picture. Instead of using a generalised CAT model, the real status of a port is analysed on current levels of cargo both onshore and in docked vessels. Cargo can range from standard containers to reefers (refrigerated containers) and vehicles stored port side. The underlying information allowing for this analysis to be performed is sourced using EO satellite and aerial imagery and automatic image analysis and information extraction. This approach leads to a fully automated risk exposure calculation solution that can be used for the major cargo ports worldwide.

The amount of available high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery is growing, and the global coverage is constantly improving, which further enhances the CPA solution in terms of quality and temporal availability. This creates a stable competitive advantage that is grounded in Skytek’s high level of competency and experience in processing and analysing satellite imagery.

---

Current status

The activity kicked off in June 2019 and was planned in two major phases: the rapid prototyping phase aiming to frontload research and proof of concept work, in particular in relation to application of ML/DL to EO images and confirm to the project stakeholders the capability of envisioned technology and secondly the integration phase with the goal of delivering production grade software and integrating the solution in the wider context of the REACT platform.

The prototype of technical solution was successfully delivered at the Critical Design Review milestone in October 2020. The integration phase then followed, and the product was successfully integrated with the existing platform and brought to production level at the Commercial Acceptance Review milestone in May 2021. The product was successfully trialed and demonstrated to a range of end user clients within both the insurance, reinsurance and broker industries and the final presentation was successfully held in December 2021.

Throughout the whole project Skytek led an intense marketing campaign with the support of the major insurance industrial partner Aon. The REACT platform was presented to many insurance and reinsurance companies in Europe, USA and Japan and generated substantial interest and engagement followed by initial sales. The intense marketing campaign of the REACT platform with the InCubed CPA solution provided for the establishment of a strong presence in insurance industry. The newly developed concept had a big role in grabbing the attention of the insurance companies as something that has not been done before and that could be a source of competitive advantage through better risk modelling and improved claims processing. During the time of the project Skytek managed to sign first sales contracts for the system. The marketing campaign continues in 2022 with future sales agreements outlook positive.

Objectives of the Product

Earth Observation (EO) helps with the development and sustainability of businesses across many different sectors. The goal of this activity is to develop a platform for automated processing of EO imagery that helps clients identify cost-effective operational solutions, particularly when it comes to planning, maintaining and monitoring of their assets.

This activity aims to provide quality service using freely available satellite imagery, advanced analytics, up-to-date technology, and operational efficiencies by reducing costs. CGI SatSight achieves all of these functionalities with an emphasis on universality, extensibility, scalability and host-independent open source architecture.

CGI SatSight offers a scalable infrastructure, distributed processing and data independency, and fully automated algorithms for downloading and processing EO data. The product is cost-effective since there is no need to purchase and maintain specialised hardware or software. It also offers an innovative and flexible solution where the client can either directly integrate into existing systems or use as a stand-alone application. The client can also choose whether to run the whole processing chain on the cloud or on their premises.

---

Customers and their Needs

Current methods for monitoring of vast infrastructures such as terrain and aerial controls are ineffective, time consuming and costly. They are also prone to mistakes caused by human factors. While there are some existing monitoring methodologies and systems, the majority are not universal to different analyses nor can they be fully tailored to clients’ needs. This presents an issue since every sector of interest has specific problems and some operators do not monitor their assets periodically nor continuously.

The CGI SatSight solution is ideal for clients that need to monitor vast areas of interest such as Oil & Gas, Energy and Utilities, Transport, Finance or Public sectors

---

Targeted customer/users countries

The solution may be of use to clients worldwide.

---

Product description

CGI SatSight is a solution for fully automated satellite image processing. The product chooses available data, downloads it, performs scalable processing and analysis, and then presents results through a notification to the user.

The technical functionalities of this product ensure clients from various sectors and industries can analyse the following use cases of this activity:

• flood detection,
• change detection,
• vertical land movement monitoring,
• cyclical vertical land movement monitoring.

---

Added Value

The activity brings a complete and universal solution that offers a fully automated, scalable and distributed infrastructure. It also provides openness and universality for different types of analysis and plug-in architecture that reduces implementation and usability requirements.

In addition, the client can decide whether to integrate the platform into their existing systems or use it as a stand-alone application. The activity has also developed four initial use cases: analyses of flood detection, change detection and two for vertical land movement.

While the initial focus of the project was on Oil and Gas clients, the platform can be expanded into a wide range of businesses. As well as processing satellite imagery, the platform infrastructure can be used for a variety of space and non-space applications (e.g. image document and video processing) that require high computing power.

---

Current status

The project is in its last quarter period. All customers’ and users’ needs were identified, verification and validation plans defined. The development of the technical platform and its web application has finished. Methodology and algorithmisation for all four use cases are done. The flood detection has been successfully implemented into the core of the platform.  

The following steps of the project will be devoted to implementing the land movement use case and the improvement of the web application to suit the interferometry character and maintain a good user experience. Potential customers are continuously interviewed, and new areas and further development for the solution are sought.

The basic part of the project was successfully completed. Whole platform and dedicated use cases were developed, tested and implemented. The frontend of the web application was highly improved to ensure smooth and comfortable user experience. Negotiations with potential customers are still ongoing, but even at the end of the project the platform was used for trial operation for some clients. The platform is open for new use cases according to clients’ needs

Objectives of the Product

The MicroSAR ground segment builds on the existing ground segment infrastructure at KSAT. This InCubed activity supports the development of new and innovative functionalities for real-time data take tasking using an upgraded KSAT Order Desk, communication between the ordering and the available satellite resources (“Mission Control”), access to the downlinked payload data from the SAR and AIS sensors, as well as a real-time SAR processor to feed the data and feed into the vessel detection and identification service chain.

The ground segment enables processing of downlinked data while the satellite downlink is ongoing. This includes direct stream of data, but optionally also to allow generation of traditional Level0 and Level1 products. The direct stream of data significantly decreases the time from the moment the downlink is done until a ship detection service is available for the end user. In order to support the direct streaming, new innovations have to be done both within the core SAR processing algorithms and its system design. The core SAR algorithms is designed to support the innovative new instrument behaviour that enables the high resolution and area coverage of the SAR instrument. This capacity, together with the global KSAT ground station network, provides the users with global information about vessels at sea in less than 30 minutes.

---

Customers and their Needs

There is a strongly increasing global need for updated, reliable information about vessels, for applications including general safety at sea, but in particular for national sovereignty, illegal fishing, illegal immigration, smuggling etc. In this context, (near)real-time access to information about the vessels means much less than one hour after acquisition of data. The customers conclude subscription agreements for a systematic, long-term monitoring of their AOI’s. In addition, there is an increasing demand for short term/real-time tasking which has not been possible yet. The demand for information extends from getting the position, time and (AIS) identity of the vessels, onto details about the vessel category, size, speed and heading.

The output vessel detection information generated in the MicroSAR ground segment is addressing primarily main stakeholders in the institutional sector, e.g. including Norwegian government, other national governments and institutional users. These users have global interests, with an increasing focus on information about small(er) vessels and where the areas of interest may change very fast. Contract opportunities arise from both open tenders and confidential bi-lateral agreements with the provider. The success of the activity is measured in terms of vessel information sales to global customers. The activities following the development is self-standing and the success depends upon the result of sales and marketing in terms of number of customers.

---

Targeted customer/users countries

The customer base is fully global.

---

Product description

The baseline for the development of the MicroSAR ground segment is the existing KSAT ground segment, to be upgraded with the facilities and functionalities needed to handle the increased data downlink rates, data volume and customer requirements for access to the information. The rationale for the proposed architecture are:

• The ground segment is designed to make it possible to significantly improve system rapidity in terms of delays through the whole service production chain: tasking, data download, processing, detection and service delivery.
• To deliver the generated products very quickly after sensing, responding to market demand of a maximum 30 minute delay from image acquisition to detection service delivery. Notice that the vessel detection process is outside the scope of this activity

Delayed tasking and provision of data for information extraction is an important limitation on existing SAR missions. The Mission Control unit is the interface between the satellite and the order desk and provides information about what data takes might be possible. KSAT has an ordering tool developed by a European company that is further developed to include the new direct tasking opportunity. This develops both the actual providers competence on advanced mission planning, as well as KSAT operational competence.

The SAR processor is developed as a dedicated processor tailored for just this sensor and producing just the required output to feed into the vessel detection algorithms. The ground segment operates a SAR processor which can process the data (almost) as fast as the data is downlinked.

The ground station components all communicate using the EOSPS standard (the Earth observation extension OGC 10-135 to the OCG Sensor Planning Service OGC 09-000). A similar standard (OCG 06-141r6) is already used in some of the existing KSAT ground station components, so competence related to the practical use of such standards is already available in the activity. Available interfaces which do not use EOSPS (yet) communicate via (rather simple) proxies. This standard is used for planning and communicating about the sensing, down-linking and processing, not for defining formats used in the actual downlink, storage and processing.

---

Added Value

Today KSAT’s access to EO data for the services utilization depends upon agreements with commercial satellite owners/operators. KSAT aims at being an independent service provider which is not biased to use own mission data. The MicroSAR mission fits into this operational strategy. KSAT has the data rights and performs the operations. This improves the competitive position even further as an independent global provider of (near)real-time multimission maritime information services.

The competitive operational edge with the mission and ground segment is the sensor dedication for vessels only and the fast data request take turn-around and information delivery time. The new system enables a strongly improved service offering the following features over the current service:

• Strongly Improved KSAT Vessel detection service using MicroSAR data through the MicroSAR ground Segment that enables maritime monitoring of the oceans of the world in a new way. Combination of high swath width and high resolution is enabling detection of small objects (small boats) in same acquisition/image.
• Tasking time could in best case be reduced to hours, compared to operational services where days and weeks is the standard for tasking time.
• Improved NRT service delivery. By using the entire KSAT ground network a maximum latency of 30 minutes between image acquisition and service delivery should be assured globally.
• Improved ordering and tasking process and data exchange enabling automated tasking by Order Desk/acquisition resources.

---

Current status

• The system key drivers and requirements, and the overall system design documentation have been completed.
• The Ordering and Tasking system integration testing is on-going, even though it has not obtained the full functionality yet.
• The first release of the Savoir plug-in to be used for automatized mission data acquisition planning has been delivered and is being tested.
• The first release of the automated satellite control and mission planning system (DyST) has been installed at Sandbox.
• The first release of the MicroSAR Ground Segment Integrator Module has been provided and tested vs Savoir and DyST.
• A SAR processor pre-release annotated has been installed at the Sandbox, and tested on simulated data.
• The milestone review n 1 was successfully performed on 16^th January 2020.

Objectives of the Product

It is now possible to get information from images quickly after their acquisition, with imagery available in abundance. SignalEyes services provide Calls-to-Action for agri-business partners, managers of infrastructure or environment and mapmakers.

SignalEyes is a system that identifies object changes that customers are interested in, such as crop parcels, buildings, roads, water courses, solar panels and trees. Signal changes are varied and translated into tailored messages for customers such as:

• ‘’reserve mowing capacity in week x for 5 ha on parcel y’’ for biomass development in a pasture
• ‘’estimated volume of building annex is z m³, check building permit’’ for a new annex of a building.

The SignalEyes system consists of Object Based Signal Generators (OBSG), that are sets of ‘deep-learning’ algorithms monitoring the status of a particular object type on new images inserted into the SignalEyes system. Object knowledge and image characteristics together lead to Calls-to-Action that are specific to customers. The project is allowing OBSG’s to work together for neighbouring objects in order to increase their quality.

---

Customers and their Needs

The SIG4EO technology in SignalEyes is being applied in 2020 for a variety of customers such as:

• Local governments managing large scale topographic maps (BGT) in The Netherlands receive mapping instructions for modified objects. When mapped, they are checked in SignalEyes.
• Gasunie, Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM) and other infrastructure managers receive alerts on spatial changes over or near the pipeline and other infrastructure that may form a risk to the assets.
• Engineering companies working on the modernisation of sewage systems, and preventing heavy rain flooding, use the continuously updated and very detailed Surface Sealing Map of the entire Netherlands.
• Provinces and nature protection agencies practice law enforcement on the cutting of trees by using information on the number and height of trees in the Boomregister.
• A variety of customers in The Netherlands and abroad receive information on the presence and area of solar panels, and rooftop potential. This service is now in execution for 14 metropolitan cities in Asia.
• Agencies paying/controlling agricultural subsidies in Europe and beyond for specific subsidies.

---

Targeted customer/users countries

The Netherlands, Denmark, Kazakhstan, India, Tajikistan, etc.

---

Product description

Satellite sensors are better suited to monitor changes on the surface of the Earth. Individual changes can be sold to interested parties when they are put in a language relevant to these parties and when they meet criteria such as price, timeliness and quality. The essence of SignalEyes’ innovation is that we have succeeded in meeting this criteria, with signals used in very different fields.

A SignalEyes signal refers to a number of database fields used to formulate the Call-to-Action of a user. The signal is also rich enough to contain the elements that enable the control such as whether the action has been executed and registered correctly.

Information provided on the API, its quality and the frequency as well as type of imagery used is all included in the Service Level Agreement with a customer. The change signalling in SignalEyes is a generic activity performed for objects for which customers have been identified/contracted.

---

Added Value

The production of change signals may be generic, but the information each individual customer requires is specific. A generically produced change signal may not be worth the cost. However a value added information Call-to-Action that a customer can directly assimilate in their work process has a significantly higher value. This is why SignalEyes Callsto-Action are generated for each individual customer.

Of course, data for Calls-to-Action are based on a spatial change that is generated from many sources. However, there is little competition when the timeframe between the collection of a satellite image and the subsequent Calls–to-Action are in the order of a few days and has a completeness nearing 100%.

---

Current status

The SIG4EO activity was completed in March 2020. The SignalEyes workflow assimilates the activity results during 2020 for all described objects.

With the completion of the SIG4EO activity, NEO starts the monitoring of all crop parcels, trees, water courses, buildings, roads and nature areas with at least four coverages of 50-cm VHR-images in 2020.

NEO is the first company on the planet able to monitor an entire country at this level of detail with this frequency and speed.

Objectives of the Product

The product is an end-to-end system providing access to specialised EO information streams allowing the agro-food industry to easily ‘plug-in’ and integrate this information in their workflows. The system provides a set of initial customer facing services including:

• Crop growth information
• Meteorological information and analysis
• Soil moisture information
• Potato disease risk assessment
• Crop type classification
• Yield estimation and forecasting

---

Customers and their Needs

EO PLUG-IN services are tailored to different customer segments and developed in partnership with customers. These customers cover distinct elements of the end-to-end potato supply chain, and engage with major specialist suppliers such as growers and processors.

---

Targeted customer/users countries

Benelux and selected locations in Eastern Africa.

---

Product description

The EO PLUG-IN system and its features are strategically designed as a system enabling users to derive any number of solutions, guided through online based step-by-step implementation workflows for establishing specific API data streams.

A dashboard for demonstration purposes was also developed and is provided to specific customers.

---

Added Value

EO PLUG-IN provides the following added value to customers:

• Near-real time, fully remote, and during season indication on the development and stress level for a large number of potato fields
• An indication on potential yield
• Less field sampling resulting in higher efficiency as well as lower travel and labour costs

---

Current status

The EO PLUG-IN system is operational and a set of services are already offered to individual customers. An improved vitality indicator is currently being developed with in-situ field data. A GeoVille subsidiary company – Geo4A – was founded and is based in the Netherlands in close proximity to the market and is in constant exchange with existing and potential new customers.

---

EO PLUG-IN overview

Objectives of the Product

Remote sensing requirements for the natural resources sector demand high data quality and coverage/revisit time. The Mission and Agile Nanosatellite for Terrestrial Imagery Services (MANTIS) mission fulfils these requirements using a compact and agile nanosatellite (12U CubeSat system).

Specific use cases that inform the mission design have been derived from Terrabotics’ experience in delivering tailored information requirements and actionable intelligence to its end-users.

---

Customers and their Needs

This MANTIS satellite is particularly suitable for energy and mining applications. 60% of resources for these companies can be found in remote and hostile regions, leading to more complex and expensive projects.

Two thirds of these major projects go over-budget or are delayed due to unforeseen risks and hazards. These failings are usually a result of inadequate upfront due diligence, planning and prior knowledge of the challenging operating environments. Actionable intelligence plays a vital role in improving safety, planning and mitigating the risks of these projects.

The MANTIS satellite addresses these challenges with periodic statistical reports on regions of interest. These reports are computed through the latest data processing and machine learning techniques as well as other data sets, such as those derived from the EC/ESA Copernicus Programme.

The satellite obtains high resolution images that will later be combined with lower resolution data that is already available from the Copernicus Programme.

---

Targeted customer/users countries

The MANTIS satellite images different parts of the world. The sun-synchronous orbit chosen for the MANTIS mission offers frequent revisit times (an average revisit time of four days at the equator), while retaining flexibility to image new areas of interest based on evolving market demands.

---

Product description

As prime contractor, Open Cosmos Ltd. is responsible for the end-to-end space mission service covering the space, launch, ground and user segments of the mission. Open Cosmos leverages its strategic partnerships with key players in the industry to enable the delivery of services across these segments.

Open Cosmos provides a new generation 12U spacecraft platform. This platform hosts the Integrated Standard Imager for Microsatellites (iSIM-12U), an innovative high-resolution optical payload for EO missions developed by Satlantis Microsats SL.

The payload consists of a compact binocular telescope specifically designed to fit within a volume of 8U, and is ideal for 12U CubeSat standard platforms. The design relies on iSIM technology, comprised by the integration of four key technologies:

• A binocular diffraction-limited optical system working at visible and near-infrared wavelength.
• A high precision, robust and light structure.
• A set of innovative COTS detectors with 2D CMOS sensors.
• A high-performance and reconfigurable on-board processing unit with super-resolution algorithms implemented.

Terrabotics’ object recognition and change detection algorithms enable the processing of data on the ground using the latest machine learning techniques. The image below shows the product/system architecture and highlights the main system building blocks, both on a high level.

---

Added Value

The current space imagery market is not tailored to the energy sectors needs when it comes to legal terms and conditions, performance and availability. The MANTIS mission offers an end-to-end solution dedicated to the energy market by providing simple licensing for end-users, optimised client area coverage and priority tasking.

This MANTIS satellite could be the first of an aggregated constellation operated by Open Cosmos. The constellation would give customers access to diverse types and volumes of information, depending on the number of satellites. This would enable organisations of all sizes and sectors to leverage their own space infrastructure, developed and managed by Open Cosmos. These organisations would also benefit from additional datasets and services from satellites that Open Cosmos manages and operates for others.

---

Current status

The MANTIS mission has successfully completed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR) milestone. The Consortium partners are executing activities as part of the critical design phase for the mission. This includes the selection of third party products and services, and executing early engineering integration activities.

Objectives of the Product

ENPULSION is currently selling electric space propulsion systems with a Components-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) version of the integrated thruster Power Processing Unit (PPU).

Discussions with key players of the space industry have shown that these customers need a higher level of electronic part reliability (radiation tolerance), as well as a higher level of product assurance of the overall thruster system.

ENPULSION currently offers electric space propulsion solutions for small and medium-sized satellites from two product families: ENPULSION NANO and ENPULSION MICRO. The ENPULSION NANO R³ is a development product with COTS+ parts based on the flight proven ENPULSION NANO (formerly IFM Nano Thruster). It is also an improvement on the lessons learned during in-orbit verification, ground testing, and customer feedback.

Originally designed for Cubesat application, the COTS+ variant is intended for small satellite applications. The main focus is an upgrade of the electronics to increase reliability and suitability for more demanding space environments. Consequently, a standard-compliant qualification test campaign tracks the development.

For high emission requirements concerning thrust and total impulse, the ENPULSION MICRO R³ is a suitable solution for medium-size satellites found in constellations. This activity includes a qualification test campaign to demonstrate the performance and suitability for the space environment.

---

Customers and their Needs

The versatility of the ENPULSION NANO and ENPULSION MICRO families results in a wide range of customers. These include academia building student based Cubesats over SMEs, and start-ups demonstrating their satellite missions or electric propulsion for constellations of heritage customers.

Discussions with customers identified requirements regarding environmental loads, performance capabilities, and design aspects. These are considered in the design definition and qualification levels of the two thruster systems.

The main challenge is to design propulsion systems in a one-size-fits-all approach. These systems must respect general space standards and end-user requirements from different backgrounds and countries. They must also keep them sufficiently low in price so that emerging players with budget-constraints can access the space market.

---

Targeted customer/users countries

All space-fairing countries.

---

Product description

The ENPULSION NANO R³ (see Figure 1) and the ENPULSION MICRO R³ (see Figure 2) are Field-Emission Electric Propulsion (FEEP) systems for small and medium-size satellite applications. They are designed based on flight-proven technology originally intended for the New Space market with comparably lower product assurance and verification requirements compared to space heritage providers. Both thruster systems undergo extensive Qualification Tests according to ECSS standards, in order to mitigate technological risks and strengthen the competitiveness of this European solution on the global market.

This includes environmental endurance and performance as well as radiative testing to demonstrate the capacity to withstand more challenging space environments. The test levels are based on standards and feedback from customers and agencies. The qualification test campaigns aim to improve the customer’s trust in the products and to formally raise the TRL. First commercial flight opportunities are negotiated for both thrusters leading to in-orbit verification as an additional test step. Successful campaigns enable series production of both thrusters similar to the existing commercialisation efforts.

---

Added Value

FEEP technology is based on solid propellant that is liquefied once in orbit. No pressurised propellant feed systems are required. This decreases the risks and complexity compared to other electric propulsion systems based on xenon, krypton, argon, or hydrogen. The high density of the used indium propellant as well as the high specific impulse inherit to FEEPs yields a compact solution for high total impulses. Reducing volume and mass allows for easier integration into S/Cs leading to decreased costs.

No propellant loading, purging, leak tests, etc. are required at integration level. This aids AIT scheduling and reduces workload. The consequent plug-and-play products are suitable and versatile for many constellation and small satellite applications including those used for EO.

---

Current status

A review of requirements and standards from customers has been conducted to determine the test spectrum, associated levels, and sequencing to plan qualification test campaigns. This is continually iterated with customers and agencies. Delta designs and analyses leading from the ENPULSION NANO to the ENPULSION NANO R³ (COTS+ variant) and the ENPULSION MICRO R³ have been concluded for the mechanical, thermal, and electrical aspects. Qualification models have been built for the thruster heads, and the PPU electronics are currently procured. Qualification test campaigns are intended to start following some preliminary verification tests.