OmniEarth Announces Partnership
to Create Global Satellite
Constellation and Extensive Hosted
Payload Opportunity
OmniEarth LLC announced today a
partnership with Harris Corp.,
Draper Laboratory and Dynetics to
create a constellation of satellites
to deliver high resolution
analytics-grade, multispectral
imagery data and products, and
hosted payloads to commercial and
government customers. Imagery data
and products will be for subscribers
in the agriculture, energy, natural
resources, mobile services and
government communities.
The planned
OmniEarth constellation of up to 18
satellites will cover 100% of the Earth once
per day. OmniEarth’s imagery and analytics
will enhance users’ ability to detect,
analyze, react to and predict economic and
environmental change in near real time.
“This partnership brings together the
necessary technical capabilities and
space-mission experience for achieving the
most ambitious mission to observe planet
Earth ever undertaken,” said Lars Dyrud,
president and CEO of OmniEarth. “This system
will generate up to 60 petabytes of
scientific quality Earth observation data
annually to feed the next generation of Big
Data analytics. Our planned satellite
constellation will provide the platform for
users who need high-quality
analytics-friendly imagery to automatically
extract commerce and environmental
information and make predictions.”
The planned satellite constellation will
also provide commercial and government
customers a turnkey, hosted-payload
solution, including launch, ground
infrastructure and global coverage with a
rapid revisit time. The offering consists of
up to 80 kg of payload space per satellite
with total system capacity of over 1400 kg,
all on a highly stabilized LEO platform.
As part of the hosted payload
partnership, Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS)
will integrate the hosted payloads using
Harris’ AppStarTM reconfigurable,
multi-mission payload platform to support
marketing efforts for leveraging the
available capacity for secondary missions.
Harris is a leader in hosted payloads and is
currently providing 81 hosted payloads for
the new Iridium NEXT satellite
constellation, the largest implementation of
a hosted payload solution.
“Hosted payloads are a cost-effective
solution that enable government and
commercial customers to realize their
mission objectives without the expense of
single-mission satellites,” said Bill Gattle,
vice president and general manager, National
Programs, Harris Government Communications
Systems. “OmniEarth will provide affordable
access to space for those who could
otherwise not obtain it.”
OmniEarth is partnering with Dynetics to
develop and manufacture the satellites at
Dynetics’ new state-of-the-art Solutions
Complex, which was built to support
assembly-line production. OmniEarth’s
satellites are based on Dynetics’
TerraSenseTM, a high-bandwidth and
maneuverable small satellite platform. In an
earlier project, Dynetics manufactured
FASTSAT (Fast, Affordable, Science and
Technology Satellite) in less than 10 months
using off-the-shelf technology and agile
processes at half the cost of a
“traditional” satellite and successfully
carried six payloads to space.
“Dynetics is pleased to be a contributing
partner and investor in this venture,” said
Dynetics President David King. “We provide a
flexible satellite platform and rapid
production capabilities that the OmniEarth
team will need to meet users’ needs quickly
and affordably.”
Draper Laboratory is providing overall
systems specification and systems
engineering for the effort, ensuring that
the design and its implementation ensures
mission success. “Draper is pleased to be a
key partner in the development of this first
of a kind system and see it as a perfect
match for the exciting, leading edge
programs we want to support,” said Draper
Director of Space Systems, Seamus Tuohy
