The growing space sector — and especially the burgeoning satellite industry — is spawning an ecosystem of businesses applying space-based technologies, and solving age-old problems that have long troubled the world. 

As the number of satellites in low Earth orbit has grown, downstream consumers of their data have benefitted from decreasing costs, as well as the increasing frequency of collection and expanding coverage of geography. That trend is set to accelerate as even more sensor types — like high-resolution synthetic aperture radar and radio frequency detectors — add to already rich data sets. That data will create opportunities for entrepreneurs to dream up innovative solutions for their corporate and government clients. 

New Zealand-based Xerra Earth Observation Institute is a case in point. An emerging Government-owned business launched in 2017, Xerra is a remote sensing and data analytics company focused on using space-based data to protect marine ecosystems and combat illegal activity.  Early on, Xerra recognised satellites were particularly well-suited to monitoring the maritime domain and provided a unique opportunity to more effectively direct assets like patrol aircraft or ships to fight illegal fishing or drug smuggling. 

According to CEO Steve Cotter, “The whole point of launching rockets is not to burn holes in clouds — it’s to put sensors up in orbit that can look down and tell you in real time what is happening back on Earth.” 

In particular, Xerra is applying machine learning to these new data sets to better understand vessel movements and detect anomalous behaviours. 

For instance, the company works with the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries to monitor inbound vessels — helping analysts to assess the potential risks they present to the nation by analysing their journey before arrival. By utilising modelling from Johns Hopkins University, Xerra can assess the relative likelihood that crew on board have COVID-19 by comparing daily COVID-19 incidence data to the vessel’s travel history.  

Andy Hovey, the company’s head of product and design, says “All of that information is crunched with an epidemiological model that gives us the probability or relative likelihood of COVID-19.” 

From an operational perspective, the service helps analysts filter out thousands of vessels, enabling them to focus just on the smaller number relevant to their concerns. Its technology can also identify vessels in locations where they ought not to be — for instance, illegal fishing boats. It bounces radars off the hulls of boats and then combines this with other types of data, such as radio frequency, to help analysts. 

Xerra is typical of many organisations using space as the backbone for more traditional business models. Grounded solidly on Terra Firma, it is taking advantage of new data sets and services from companies deploying satellites.  Further upstream in the value chain there is also a growing set of satellite providers. 

Planet.com is one such company, currently generating $100 million in annual recurring revenue. It operates a simple subscription model for customers across multiple industries, which access the information captured by Planet to build their businesses.  It has about 200 satellites scanning the Earth constantly and generating data sets with wide applicability. Its service appeals to a range of businesses, from farming organisations that need to plan their activities for the year, through to financial services outfits — such as hedge funds, looking to trade off those improvements in agriculture. 

Its customers include the New Mexico State Land Office (NMSLO), which manages nine million acres of surface land and 13 million acres of subsurface minerals. It uses Planet’s daily Earth imagery to improve compliance, protect natural resources, and generate revenue for the public institutions that it supports. 

Queenland’s Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy (DNRME) in Australia, meanwhile needed to increase the frequency at which satellite imagery scanned over 1.8 million square kilometres of land. Planet’s monitoring tool allowed it to leapfrog traditional tasking solutions and gather critical environmental insights frequently. 

An Australian start-up, Fleet Space, is in the process of building a 140-satellite constellation and already has six in space - the most recent of which was launched on a SpaceX flight.  Fleet effectively offers Internet of Things connectivity for remote assets. In a country as large as Australia, this provides an important piece of digital infrastructure for utility and energy companies, which need to track assets in remote locations. 

The company says it is a global leader in NanoSatellite Digital Beamforming for Low Power Wide Area Networks. Among its innovations, it produced the world’s first 3D-printed all-metal patch antenna, which it says delivers ten times more throughput per kilo of spacecraft. More recently it was named as one of two recipients of the Australian government’s Moon to Mars Supply Chain Capability Improvement grant. The other recipient was Crystalaid Manufacturing, which supplies electronic components to the international space industry.