Canadian Space Tech Companies Partner to Deliver Next-Generation Earth Observation Data

 June 30, 2021

SkyWatch Space Applications Inc. has signed an agreement to deliver data management capabilities to Wyvern, a commercial space data company headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Founded in 2018, Wyvern was created to make high-quality hyperspectral data accessible and affordable. Wyvern's data will unlock new possibilities in agriculture, forestry, energy, water quality, environmental monitoring, and other areas. "We founded Wyvern because our team strongly believes in environmental sustainability, and the capability of hyperspectral imagery to deliver sustainability to the world," says Chris Robson, CEO at Wyvern. "We saw a need in the market for high-quality satellite imagery at an affordable price."

Hyperspectral imagery, which captures light across hundreds of bands to deliver the most information-rich images of the Earth's surface, has historically been prohibitively expensive due to the optical technology required to capture hyperspectral imagery via low-Earth orbit satellites.

Wyvern's novel unfolding camera technology is revolutionizing the combined quality and affordability of Earth imagery. Wyvern's very small satellites are equipped with a telescope that unfolds in space, allowing the capture of high-quality, information-rich imagery at an affordable price.

SkyWatch's TerraStream platform will provide data management, ordering, processing, and delivery services for Wyvern's satellites, scheduled to launch in mid-2022. The turnkey data management platform allows partners to focus on developing core intellectual property, like Wyvern's proprietary camera technology, and provides analysis-ready data and a reduced time to market and profitability. Integration with SkyWatch's EarthCache platform, which provides application developers and GIS specialists with satellite imagery at scale, allows TerraStream customers to tap into a market of Earth observation data consumers on day one.

"We're proud to partner with Wyvern, another Canadian company, to deliver this kind of data to the world," says James Slifierz, CEO at SkyWatch. "Democratized access to affordable Earth observation data is the business model of the future, and we're building it right here in Canada."