Ireland Degges
Maxar Technologies and Umbra have partnered to create a new multisource geospatial intelligence offering for both public and private sector use.
To develop the integrated product, Umbra will provide dedicated capacity from satellites in its synthetic aperture radar imagery constellation to Maxar’s portfolio of earth intelligence products and services, the two companies announced in a joint release on Tuesday.
“Maxar and Umbra are breaking new ground for the geospatial intelligence industry with this multisource offering. Though optical and SAR imagery are highly complementary, collection management across these sources has historically been siloed,” said Dan Jablonsky, president and CEO of Maxar and two-time Wash100 Award winner.
“By integrating dedicated capacity from Umbra satellites into our secure ground infrastructure, we can help our Access customers derive real-time insights from the highest resolution electro-optical and SAR data in the industry,” he added.
Umbra’s satellites are able to see past clouds, smoke and complete darkness using the company’s advanced resolution, licensed down to 13 centimeters. In the combined offering, Maxar’s decades of SAR processing experience, high-resolution optical imagery and 3D datasets will harmonize with the former’s satellite capabilities to provide high-quality SAR data.
Once the offering is made available, Maxar will be further enabled to provide assured access to high-resolution commercially available earth observation data captured at all times of the day and across all weather conditions.
The integrated technology is also anticipated to augment the high-revisit capabilities of Maxar’s WorldView Legion satellite constellation, which will allow its users to monitor change in near real-time.
David Langan, co-founder and CEO of Umbra, said Maxar’s selection of Umbra as a SAR dedicated access partner is a testament to the “value that SAR data brings to customers.”
“This agreement will energize commercial SAR utilization world-wide and will support Umbra’s ambitions of building and growing a robust commercial business case,” commented Umbra Co-founder and President Gabe Dominocielo.
Initially, Umbra’s SAR data will be incorporated into Maxar’s Rapid Access Program software, a secure web interface that enables clients to digitally task Maxar’s satellites using on-demand access windows.
The new product is scheduled to be made available beginning in quarter two of 2023 and be completely integrated by 2024.
