Maxar Intelligence and Satellogic, Inc., are working together to sharpen their ability to provide monitoring and change-detection data to US and international government customers.
The arrangement, announced today, gives Maxar the exclusive right to task, collect, and distribute Satellogic’s satellite imagery and apply machine learning and AI to detect changes on the ground.
Match made in orbit: The unique partnership is based on the simple idea that if one is good, more is better when it comes to eyes in the skies.
“In today’s dynamic environment, warfighters and intelligence analysts need to be able to detect and understand change over many areas of interest simultaneously,” Peter Wilczynski, Maxar’s chief product officer, said in the announcement. “To achieve this more ambitious mission, customers need access to more than one constellation.”
By taking advantage of Satellogic’s high revisit rates, Maxar can quickly—and cost effectively—source images anywhere on the planet to detect activity and change. When customers want to look closer at a particular point on the ground, Maxar can then task its own satellites to snap a more detailed view—down to 30 cm resolution.
The combined constellation gives governments the ability to gather insights on multiple geographies at once, while balancing image resolution and cost.
Friends today… Both EO companies have plans to grow their constellations in the coming years—seemingly bringing them into tougher competition—but for the moment their partnership provides mutual benefits.
The agreement beefs up Maxar’s virtual constellation, which also includes imagery from Umbra’s SAR sats, while also opening the door for Satellogic to reach a wider customer base—and there’s plenty of demand to go around.
“This agreement with Maxar is a watershed moment in Earth observation, providing crucial capacity to warfighters and allies,” Satellogic President Matt Tirman said in the announcement. “Combining our constellation with Maxar’s expertise enables comprehensive monitoring and analytics to meet the demand for actionable intelligence.”