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.”
