This joint ESA/EC presentation will give the status on the approach of integrating European New Space companies into the Copernicus Contributing Mission Activity (CCM) as part of the Copernicus programme.

Copernicus Contributing Missions are foremost commercial EO missions which complement the EO satellite data provided by the Sentinel missions in order to respond in combination to the full set of user needs from the Copernicus Services.

ESA is the entrusted entity for the CCM Activity and operates the activity on behalf of the European Commission.

ICEYE was named as a Contributing Mission to Europe’s Copernicus Satellite Imaging Programme in October 2021. ICEYE provides synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellite data from the company’s New Space SAR constellation, which has quickly grown to become the world’s largest. In addition to SAR data, ICEYE provides and develops analysis solutions, such as flood monitoring and change detection for instance for natural catastrophe monitoring and response.

With a focus on the Land, Emergency, Security and Marine Copernicus Services, ICEYE’s continually evolving SAR imaging capabilities complement the Copernicus Contributing Missions data offering. With its capabilities for global data acquisitions with very high revisit rates and high resolution data acquisitions, even through clouds and darkness, ICEYE provides access to a broad view of our shared and continually changing planet.

In part due to climate change, catastrophe monitoring continues to become an increasingly important aspect of Earth observation. ICEYE’s capabilities in rapid response for data acquisition and flood analysis were put to the test already in 2021 with the July floods in Europe, and with Hurricane Ida in the U.S. later in the year. The company has continued to develop further analysis capabilities to address additional environmental hazards, such as wildfires, wind, hail, and earthquakes. ICEYE’s rapid response data capabilities, such as those focused on oil spills and other change detection focusing on human activity, continue to advance. Monitoring construction, and tracking illegal fishing are additional examples.

The strength of the New Space approach for Earth Observation is that innovations can be implemented and brought to market much faster than it was possible before.

The ICEYE SAR satellite constellation produces data with multi-mode imaging capabilities (Spot, Strip, Scan), with resolution down to sub-meter, scene sizes up to 10,000 km2. In addition, the company has developed the capability to acquire imagery with a Daily Coherent Ground Track Repeat: everyday acquisitions from the same location that enable the identification of micro-scale changes between acquisitions such as vertical ground subsidence beyond human sight.

ICEYE provides SAR data with VHR imaging modes: Spot and Strip. Spot mode is VHR-1 class data and its native slant plane resolution is 25 cm x 50 cm and 1 m x 1m ground. The Spot mode provides a scene size of 5 km x 5 km. Strip is VHR-2 class imaging mode with spatial resolutions down to 3 meter and scene size of 30 km x 50 km. The Strip length can be tailored up to a length of 600 km, in increments of 50 km. In addition to ICEYE’s VHR imagery, ICEYE provides HR-2 class wide-area Scan imaging data, which enables 100 km x 100 km coverage with 15 m ground resolution.

ICEYE is on track to launch several new satellites in the next few years including next generation spacecraft. This will not only enable more frequent revisit and increase the data availability, but also enhanced imaging capabilities, which is set to double the effective resolution of ICEYE’s proprietary imaging instrument.

In addition to being a Contributing Mission to Europe’s Copernicus Satellite Imaging Programme, the company is also a member of the International Disaster Charter and an ESA Third Party Mission Member.

Planet supports the Copernicus programme with its satellites as a Copernicus Contributing Mission (CCM). With a New Space approach from satellite design to data delivery, Planet operates the world’s largest fleet of commercial Earth-imaging satellites, with approximately 200 satellites in operation and over 500 designed and built to date. Planet’s mission is to image the Earth every day and make global change visible, accessible, and actionable.
Planet’s SkySat and PlanetScope constellations of optical Earth observation satellites perfectly complement each other. While the PlanetScope constellation systematically “scans” the entire landmass of the Earth with 3.7 m resolution every day for change detection over large areas, the SkySat constellation can be tasked to collect very detailed information (with 50 cm resolution) multiple times per day (up to 6-7 times a day on average) on specific locations.
Planet takes a software-like iterative approach and philosophy referred to as “Agile Aerospace” to build satellites. This methodology has been successfully demonstrated in the design of Planet’s “Doves” and “SuperDoves” spacecraft, which make up the PlanetScope constellation. This is an iterative and evolutionary approach to spacecraft development that is modeled after modern software development methodologies. Planet relies on quick iterations and space-based testing of satellites, optics, and software to create increasingly technology-dense spacecraft and data platforms at previously unattainable rapid timelines.
The New Space approach is implemented at Planet equally important in the data and information provision. Planet remains committed to developing and offering constant improvements of its data products that can enhance the capabilities and user experience of the Copernicus users now and in the future. It is important to underline that PlanetScope data is fully complementary with Sentinel-2. In practice, Planet is the only commercial vendor that harmonizes spectral bands to S-2, filling the revisit gaps and failed acquisitions due to cloud coverage in an easy to interoperate way. This allows the fusion of both datasets to support numerous use cases of Copernicus services, such as mapping crop phenology, improving agriculture water use and continuous land monitoring. In this session, an overview of some of the upcoming new product evolutions will be also presented. Among these, a new very high resolution (VHR) Pelican constellation replacing SkySat, Analysis Ready Data to enhance the Sentinel missions, video acquisitions from space and hyperspectral imagery.
Moreover, Planet offers new business models in the Earth Observation sector, coming from the software world. This particularly refers to the “data-as-a-service” model, to which users can subscribe to a selected area of interest (AOI) and get constant updates about changes in the AOI, as well as access to the long-term archive over a selected area. PlanetScope is a real monitoring mission that does not require tasking - the data is always available for users on a global scale. Thanks to this, the dataset is used not only for the nearly real-time monitoring practices over large or small areas, but also gives the opportunity to make use of data economies of scale and much lower costs for the end users. This differs from the traditional tasking business that operates with single acquisitions and high prices per km², high operational costs and limited capacity.
The Copernicus Services deserve the best datasets for specific users' needs. There is no single data provider that could fulfill the needs of all Copernicus Services, products and use cases.
Considering the needs for evolution of CCMs, New Space companies can propose innovative data products and business models that drastically simplify contractual and license processes for the procurers and data providers. Planet welcomes discussions about Copernicus’ evolution, and believes they can be of great benefit for end users.
Leveraging this innovative approach, ESA and the Copernicus programme can significantly benefit from data economies of scale, such as “data-as-a-service”, subscription plans, and flat-rate access to all eligible users, while keeping continuous access to the newest products offered by the fast evolving New Space companies.