ICEYE SAR satellite imagery from the company’s New Space constellation has been successfully validated under the Earthnet Data Assessment framework and has become part of the full Third Party Mission (TPM) portfolio in June 2021. The participation of ICEYE in the ESA TPM programme facilitates the access to SAR data and promotes the unlocking of its potential.
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. ICEYE successfully launched the World’s first SAR satellite weighing less than 100 kg in 2018. Since then, the company has launched 14 satellites in total (end of 2021), providing users with multi-mode imaging capabilities with resolution down to sub-meter and scene size up to 10,000 km2.
ICEYE SAR data has already proven its ability to support various use cases relevant to the international research users community. With its capability for global acquisitions with very high revisit, even through clouds and darkness, ICEYE data helps solve problems in domains such as forest degradation and deforestation monitoring, maritime and sea ice monitoring, oil spill detection, precision agriculture, and many others. The ESA TPM users can access imagery from the company’s archive as well as request new, custom acquisitions, which enables further use cases for change detection applications over a longer period of time.
The significantly higher availability of the VHR SAR satellite data is for the benefit of obtaining research activities on environmental changes. It makes it possible to better understand natural phenomena and human-induced changes of the planet. During recent years, ICEYE has demonstrated usability of its data for analysis of natural disasters, such as volcano activity or monitoring the impact of climate changes, for example glacier changes.
ICEYE Analytics team is keen on building AI/ML applications for heavy-duty image processing and scalable analytics. An example of this kind of activity is ICEYE’s involvement in European Space Agency (ESA) Φ-lab’s AI4SAR project.
ESA Third Party Mission users can benefit from ICEYE SAR data and obtain their own research with the company's Spot, Strip and Scan imaging modes.ICEYE enables applying for its VHR modes:Spot and Strip. Spot mode is VHR-1 class imaging mode 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, TPM users can apply for ICEYE’s HR-2 class wide-area Scan imaging mode, which enables 100 km x 100 km coverage with 15 m ground resolution.
The data for ESA TPM users is delivered in the same product formats as for all ICEYE’s customers. It includes two standard SAR data products: Single Look Complex (SLC) and Amplitude image (GRD). The products are delivered in the CEOS Level-1 ( Committee for Earth Observation Satellites) processing format and are compatible with standard GIS software, including ESA SNAP.
Before applying for ICEYE data through ESA TPM users can evaluate ICEYE SAR data which is available for free downloads on the company's webpage. It is also possible to explore the public archive of 18,000 SAR imagery databases, which includes image footprints and thumbnails for preview purposes. This archive is for demonstration purposes only and the SAR imagery archive available through ESA TPM is much more extensive and is constantly growing.
ICEYE is on track to launch several new satellites in the next few weeks 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.
ICEYE continues to drive innovations that enable users to make better decisions - more rapidly and with greater confidence. In mid 2021, ICEYE were the first SAR data provider to successfully demonstrate Daily Coherent Ground Track Repeat capabilities: everyday acquisitions from the same location that enable the identification of micro-scale changes between acquisitions such as vertical ground subsidence beyond human sight. The company is currently offering this capability to a selected group of customers. After the initial early access period, this newly demonstrated capability is expected to be available for a wider customer base.
ICEYE became an ESA Third Party Mission Member under evaluation in the mid-2020. Since June 2021, the company is a full member of the programme. The company is also a member of the International Disaster Charter and Copernicus Contributing Mission programme.
The COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) system has been developed with a special focus on the very high resolution performances, in order to accomplish the tasks of its dual use. Thanks to its 400 Mhz bandwitdh, the 4 satellites of the first generation are able to acquire very high resolution images over a large range of incidence angles (20-60°), while still maintaining a large scene size (the 1-m resolution Spotlight-2 mode is covering a 10x10 Km frame). In 2016 a new Spotlight-2A submetric imaging mode (0.3 x 0.7 m) has been developed and implemented, taking advance of the increased performance in azimuth that the steering acquisition technique allows if compared the sliding technique.
COSMO Second Generation (CSG) is the follow-on mission that guarantees continuity to the COSMO-SkyMed system. The first CSG satellite is operational since the beginning of 2021, the second one will be launched at the beginning of 2022, while the construction of the following two has been fully financed and is on-going (first launch foreseen not before 2024).
The CSG system has been improved in all systems, including a better image quality, a 3-m resolution QuadPol mode, Single or Dual polarization for all imaging modes, increased resolutions, interferometry between Stripmap modes of first and second generation, unique DI2S mode that allows to take 2 distant targets at the same time (can be made available only to pre-authorized users). Further improvements are also under development, providing even more unique imaging opportunities that no other SAR system is able to match.
For what concerns VHR imaging modes, considering the exceptional 1100 Mhz bandwith that the CSG satellites have, the civilian users have now access to 3 VHR submetric Spotlight modes. The Spotlight-2C mode (0.8x0.8 m over a 5x10 km frame, with single or dual polarization) is the high resolution mode available for all users. The increased performances of the Spotlight-2A and 2B modes, that are providing data with unmatched resolution, size and especially radiometric quality (the S/N ratio is so good that single look images can be directly used), even if they can be made available only to pre-authorized users, still are being more and more used worldwide by Users that look for the ultimate details in SAR images.
All these imaging modes are monitored and calibrated continuously every month by the COSMO program, using specific corner reflectors and uniform low signal areas.
European Space Imaging is the European distributor and provider of VHR satellite imagery for the Maxar satellite constellation. The company operates its own ground station in cooperation with the German Aerospace Center, offering customised tasking solutions and giving their customers direct access to WorldView-1, WorldView-2, WorldView-3 and GeoEye-1.
For many years, European Space Imaging has been contributing to the ESA TPM program supporting universities and research initiatives with the provision of VHR satellite imagery. A comprehensive overview to the TPM product portfolio offered by European Space Imaging and its related local tasking capabilities will be the first part of our presentation.
Within the second part of the presentation, we will present specific TPM use cases where our imagery has been used in. This will be done in cooperation with selected research facilities showcasing project overviews, the imagery used and the scientific approaches of analysis applied.
Due to the current ongoing initiative of the Green Deal our selected research project will be related to the monitoring of methane emissions, which as a greenhouse gas, adds significantly to the process of climate warming. Therefore, monitoring and controlling methane emissions caused by natural events or industrial activities (especially oil and gas) is vital to helping combat climate change. WorldView-3 data provided by European Space Imaging from the Maxar WorldView constellation, through the ESA third party mission program to the Land and Atmosphere Remote Sensing (LARS) group at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), led to a major breakthrough in how methane can be detected and mapped. Utilising short wave infrared (SWIR) images, the scientists were able to map methane plumes from various locations around Earth at a spatial resolution of up to 3.7 m. This discovery was the first of its kind and filled an important observational gap in the remote sensing of methane point emission. Positive plume detections were achieved in oil and gas extraction fields in Algeria and Turkmenistan, and in the Shanxi coal mining region in China. Previously, methane retrievals at such high resolution were only possible for airborne instruments, like the AVIRIS-NG spectrometer operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Therefore, WorldView-3’s SWIR images are an important complement to the current set of satellite missions capable of methane plume mapping, which share a spatial sampling in the 20-30 m range. The high spatial and temporal resolution of WorldView-3 SWIR observations are complemented with a high signal-to-noise ratio and a good spectral coverage of the strong methane absorption around 2300 nm, which make it a powerful mission for methane mapping. The ability to map methane emissions with VHR satellites with SWIR capabilities, such as WorldView-3, allow a substantial improvement of emission detection thresholds, as smaller emissions can be unveiled and more accurately located. It also enables a higher accuracy for quantifying emission rates and identifying which infrastructure elements are responsible for the emissions.
This is it! Following the successful launch of the first two Pléiades Neo satellites in 2021, Europe now has autonomous and sovereign very high resolution optical capabilities with 30cm resolution.
On April 29th 2021, the Earth Observation (EO) satellite Pléiades Neo 3 was successfully launched. On August 10th, its twin sister, Pléiades Neo 4 joined her in orbit. This marks the entry of European Satellites on the 30cm imagery market. In 2022, Pléiades Neo 5 and 6 will be launched in order to complete the 4-satellite constellation.
Beyond the fact that it’s 100% European, what makes Pléiades Neo so unique? It consists of 4 EO satellites, providing 30cm optical imagery, entirely funded and operated by Airbus Defence and Space. After more than 30 years of experience in satellite imagery services, it seemed like the logical way forward. In addition, Pléiades Neo is also the result of a whole new approach in terms of image quality and satellite capability. It has required rethinking the way we design satellites and exploit their services to answer a growing demand for increasingly large areas, complex requirements as well as last minute adaptations in tasking according to weather conditions and angles. All of that whilst ensuring best in class resolution with impeccable image quality.
Highest precision with massive acquisition
Firstly Pléiades Neo provides 30cm native resolution meaning that the image shot by the satellite is the actual image you receive in terms of resolution. The image therefore provides an incredible amount of details that don’t appear on lesser resolution imagery, for instance: you can make clearly see road markings, traces in the sand, cables on construction sites, details of what is being loaded on docks, even people gatherings, distinct animals and people thanks to their shadows. The geolocation accuracy which measures the exact position of an object on an image, is 5m CE90.
And if one considers precision isn’t enough, in terms of acquisition capacity, the constellation is able to acquire up to 2 million square kilometers, every single day. Two million square kilometers at 30cm resolution fully dedicated to customers, every day.
Introducing intraday revisit
It is also the first time Airbus provides an intra-day revisit capability within the same constellation. Indeed depending on the incidence angle of the satellite and the latitude of the Area Of Interest (AOI), Pléiades Neo can provide between 2 and 4 revisits per day. More particularly the tests that have been conducted over several areas and shown a minimum of 2 revisits per day and a maximum of 3, providing over 28 days a total of 64 revisits. And that’s just with two of the four satellites fully operational today.
Ultimate reactivity tasking and image delivery
Work plans are updated every time a satellite enters into S-band contact, be it every 25 minutes (an orbit is 100min, 1h40), or 15 times per day per satellite. It represents around 60 plans uploaded every day at the constellation level.
Work plan are also pooled. This means that when an image is to be collected by one satellite, the related acquisition request is removed from the tasking plans of the other satellites.
These multiple and synchronised work plans per day enable easy handling of last-minute tasking requests – which can be placed up to 15min before S-band contact- as well as integration of the latest weather information, for an improved data collection success rate.
In addition, Airbus Defence and Space’s network of ground receiving stations, enabling an all-orbit contact and thus ensuring near real-time performances worldwide and rapid data-access, ensure the highest standards in terms of reactivity of our service.
Images are downlinked at each orbit, automatically processed and quickly delivered to the customer, allowing faster response when facing emergency situations.
New spectral bands
In terms of spectral bands, Pléiades Neo will acquire simultaneously the panchromatic channels and 6 multispectral bands, which are:
- Deep Blue
- Blue
- Green
- Red
- Red-Edge
- Near Infrared
Red-Edge and Deep-Blue are two additional bands, compared to its predecessor Pléiades, which unveil complementary information for respectively vegetation and bathymetry applications. In urban environments, deep blue provides details of what is reflected in the shadows of the skyscrapers, therefore enabling far richer applications in working on e.g. smart cities and the monitoring of construction sites. Red-Edge can further enhance our understanding of vegetation and bring the processing of biophysical parameters to a completely new level and support the most efficient and respectful use of our precious natural resources on the Planet.
Finally, the tasking of a VHR satellite orbiting 600 km above the earth has never been easier. OneAtlas, our digital platform, allows the users to draw their AOI, choose Pléiades Neo as optical sensor and choose the date of acquisition while accessing the whole Airbus imagery archive.
By providing more data, more detailed, more rapidly and in a more accessible way, Pléiades Neo becomes the best support for numerous applications globally.
GEOSAT is a geoinformation company unlocking earth observation’s full potential to understand our planet and transform it for the better. GEOSAT owns and operates two satellites, GEOSAT-1 and GEOSAT-2, formerly known as Deimos-1 and Deimos-2.
The extensive portfolio of GEOSAT-1 and GEOSAT-2 offered benefits EarthNet programme by providing reliable solutions that significantly accelerate decision-making in a great variety of fields. Its accurate, scientific-quality imagery forms the foundation of its best-in-class services, which turns as a key asset to EO-based applications being developed by international Principal Investigators or start-ups, considering a pre-operational use.
GEOSAT has supported EarthNet programme on specific data provision needs for institutions, such a wall-to-wall coverage acquired during 2021 over Spain. Services provided by GEOSAT have proved to be flexible to end user requirements, by ensuring that their requests were attended through the provision of both pansharpened and bundle ortho products with ad-hoc licensing over the whole extend of the sovereign of Spain, over 500,000 km2 considering the Peninsula and Balearic and Canary Islands.
An extensive campaign was triggered by GEOSAT, leading to over 1,800,000 km2 acquired from March to November 2021. This unique and harmonized dataset has proved the great capacity of GEOSAT-2, which has been able to fulfil all the stringent requirements of a wall-to-wall coverage, combining it with the rest of acquisition campaigns over Europe, America and Asia.
Such a large acquisition campaign has been performed with the support of Visor tool, which ensure that overlaps from different acquisitions are optimized, and the number of products needed to complete the coverage are thus minimized. Weather forecasting is a key asset of this tool, providing advice on opportunities that could avoid cloud coverage. Multi-mission coverage planning is envisioned as well with this tool, allowing to go beyond the current capacity of GEOSAT-2 and offer several full coverages within a year over the same area.
Geometric accuracy is a key characteristic to guarantee that provided dataset could be valid for any EO-based application. Thanks to the great capability and expertise of the GEOSAT staff, this procedure is fully accomplished by manual quality checking leading to a superb quality product.
Airbus Intelligence UK have been providing Vision-1 Optical VHR data to the commercial market since 2019. This year we have signed a contract with ESA to ensure that this data can also be provided to ESA Category-1 (non-commercial and non-operational) users at no cost to the user via the ESA Third Party Missions (TPM) Programme.
The ESA TPM project portfolio consists of over 80 missions and constellations – SAR and optical. The global appetite for high-quality earth observation data at high and very high resolution is increasing exponentially. However, only a relatively small portion of this portfolio provide data with a natural resolution of better than 4m.
Vision-1 imagery consists of 4-band multispectral and panchromatic VHR EO data at a resolution of up to 0.87m acquired by the Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) S1-4 Imager. With its recent approval from the Earthnet Data Assessment Pilot (EDAP), and subsequent recommendation for selection as an ESA TPM, Vision-1 will provide a valuable and important addition to the ESA Third Party Mission portfolio.
Airbus in the UK has a long history of providing high-quality medium resolution data to users of ESA TPM data via the DMC constellation satellites, as well as providing support to the Deimos-1 TPM offering. In addition, Vision-1 is already supplying data to Copernicus alongside other Airbus missions (the Pleaides-1A/1B and SPOT-6/7 constellations) as part of the VHR_IMAGE_2021 consortium, headed by Airbus Intelligence in France.
As a VHR optical mission, Vision-1 data can be used across a number of potential applications including precision agriculture, land monitoring, maritime surveillance and infrastructure monitoring, among others.
High resolution monitoring of agricultural fields can give detailed information to farmers over and above the information provided by lower resolution satellites. This can be useful to smallholders, maintaining a large number of smaller fields, as well as providing more detail to larger scale agri-business, allowing them to achieve greater operational efficiencies.
Earth observation data is also becoming an increasingly important tool in the monitoring of ships and other maritime vessels, with a range of applications including fisheries management and monitoring of borders and shipping corridors.
As the number of VHR satellite missions grow, so does the level of interest in potential new applications, and we are excited for Vision-1 to become a part of their development via this programme.