Scott Nicholas
Ball Aerospace and Spire Global will collaborate to support a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency project that seeks to increase maritime domain awareness in the Arctic region through the use of technology.
Both companies aim to develop a data collection and analysis platform that will work to help the agency monitor the activity of vessels that travel in Arctic waters, Ball Aerospace said Monday.
The partnership will leverage Spire Global’s constellation of nanosatellites to collect an Automatic Identification System‘s vessel tracking data, which will then be processed by Ball Aerospace’s cloud-based data analytics architecture and fused with other commercial GEOINT data to produce detailed profiles of vessel activity and behavior.
“Through the combination of our commercial nanosatellite constellation and Ball’s extensive experience in data exploitation and analytics, we expect to provide NGA with substantial improvements in maritime domain awareness,” said Spire CEO Peter Platzer.
Debra Facktor Lepore, vice president and general manager of Ball Aerospace’s strategic operations and commercial aerospace unit, said the company aims to deliver actionable economy, environment, safety and security information to NGA through the partnership.
