Thermal imaging demand rises, led by Hydrosat’s industry-wide innovations.
British investment firm Seraphim Space surveyed the Earth observation sector a few years ago, categorizing startups by sensor type.
“Much to our surprise, it was the only sensor area that didn’t have any companies that had really progressed. None of the companies had raised $10 million, let alone $100 million or $500 million like some of the other sensor areas.”
All that is changing. Startups focused on gathering thermal imagery via satellite are attracting investment, making acquisitions and winning contracts.
The new businesses focused on thermal imagery vary widely. What the founders share is the conviction that startups can provide the type of data only expensive government satellites supplied in the past.
Urgent Climate Action
Climate change is propelling much of the work. Venture capital firms are flocking to startups promising to track emissions or mitigate the impact of droughts, floods and forest fires.
Thermal imagery startups also are benefiting from recent declines in launch costs and technological advances.
What’s more, founders have identified government and commercial customers willing to pay for thermal imagery. Farmers are buying data that help them irrigate crops without wasting water. And fire departments are eager for access to satellite images that reduce the need for dangerous aerial flights over wildfires.
The European Commission and the European Space Agency awarded contracts in June to Constellr, OroraTech and Spanish startup Aistech Space.
The companies will supply thermal data to complement observations collected through the European Union Copernicus Earth-observation program.
Data Fusion
When Albedo, a Colorado startup, was founded in 2020, the business plan focused on collecting 10-centimeter-resolution optical imagery from telescopes in very low Earth orbit. The founders soon realized they could obtain longwave infrared imagery from the same satellites without much additional cost.
Plus, the combination of optical and thermal imagery helps observers distinguish hot tubs from pools or trampolines, and backyard dwelling units from sheds.
Albedo has raised $58 million for refrigerator-size satellites scheduled to begin launching in 2025.
Work on Albedo’s infrared technology is being funded by the U.S. Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center under a $1.25 million contract. Under another $1.25 million contract, the Air Force is working with Albedo to look for ways to integrate Albedo imagery tasking with government systems.
Ecosphere Health
Constellr is preparing to launch satellites in 2024 to gather thermal data for agricultural and environmental-monitoring applications.
Since the company was founded in 2020, constellr has raised about $14 million in venture capital and received an additional $14 million in grants.
Earlier this year, constellr acquired ScanWorld, a Belgian hyperspectral satellite imagery and analytics startup. With four shoebox-size satellites equipped with infrared sensors, constellr plans to gather daily imagery of agricultural fields around the world. By adding hyperspectral data, constellr can help farmers identify crop disease and manage fertilization schedules.
Under the five-year, $5 million Copernicus contract announced in June, constellr will provide thermal imagery to thousands of European institutions.
Water Scarcity
Washington-based Hydrosat has raised $35.6 million to obtain thermal data from space. Supporting sustainable agriculture and helping customers reduce carbon emissions are the company’s primary goals.
Thermal data can pick up initial signs of drought two to four weeks before optical imagery shows a change in the color of vegetation, said Pieter Fossel, Hydrosat CEO and co-founder.
In June, Hydrosat acquired IrriWatch, a Netherlands company that delivers daily climate, crop, soil and irrigation updates to farmers.
Hydrosat, founded in 2017, plans to launch its first two satellites next year.
Fire Danger
After being told thermal imagery could not possibly be captured with cubesats, OroraTech’s founders raised $22.4 million to prove naysayers wrong. The German startup demonstrated its first uncooled thermal infrared sensor on a Spire Global cubesat in 2022.
OroraTech plans to collect global imagery every 30 minutes with a constellation of 96 satellites. The first eight satellites, built and operated by Spire Global under an agreement announced June 28, are slated to launch into a late-afternoon sun-synchronous orbit in 2024.
Data Sharing
SatVu was founded in 2016 to gather high-resolution thermal imagery with 160-kilogram satellites. After raising 12.7 British pounds ($16 million) for satellites designed and manufactured with Surrey Satellite Technologies Ltd., SatVu launched its first spacecraft in June.
A second satellite is slated to launch in 2024. SatVu’s eight-satellite constellation should be operating in a couple of years, Baker said.
To date, 66 companies have committed 128 million pounds to SatVu’s Early Access Programme. SatVu customers who sign up for the Early Access Programme can task SatVu’s airborne sensor to collect thermal imagery and obtain discounts on future satellite-tasking orders.
Another potential application is industrial activity monitoring.
Foldable Telescopes
Earlier this year, Spain’s Satlantis acquired a majority stake in SuperSharp, a British university spin-out developing unfolding space telescopes to obtain thermal infrared imagery.
UK government agencies have provided initial funding for SuperSharp.
Satlantis, meanwhile, sells a variety of Earth observation payloads and manufactures satellites like Armenia’s Armsat-1, launched in 2022.
Once SuperSharp’s infrared telescope is flight-proven, the company will begin selling foldable telescopes for microwave-size cubesats and developing a larger version of the telescope for higher-resolution imagery.
Guardian Satellites
One of the first startups to launch a thermal infrared imaging satellite was Aistech. The Spanish startup’s first cubesat equipped with a multi-spectral telescope to collect visible, near-infrared and thermal infrared imagery reached orbit in 2022.
Aistech is preparing to launch 20 Guardian thermal-imagery satellites into a constellation, scheduled to be completed in 2027, with applications including water management, forestry, environmental monitoring and maritime security. Two additional Guardians are set to launch in the second quarter of 2024.
In June, Aistech was named a Copernicus Contribution Mission contract.
This article originally appeared in the July 2023 issue of SpaceNews magazine.
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