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SAN FRANCISCO – Capella Space released radar satellite images with a resolution of 50 centimeters by 50 centimeters, which the San Francisco startup says is the highest resolution available from a commercial synthetic aperture radar satellite operator.
Images released Dec. 16 show Sequoia’s Spotlight mode, a 100-kilogram radar satellite designed to hover over one location for 20 to 60 seconds.
“We have found that 8 inches is our sweet spot, but it is customizable,” said Payam Banazadeh, CEO and founder of Capella Space. SpaceNews.
Since its founding in San Francisco in 2017, Capella Space has been working to establish a constellation of SAR satellites to provide daily global imagery and data to government and commercial clients. Capella Space launched Sequoia, its first operational satellite, in August on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket.
In marketing materials, Capella Space compares Sequoia’s performance against its competitors.
“No one else can make the 50 centimeter square pixels natively,” Banazadeh said.
However, it is difficult to compare SAR images, because marketing materials often cite resolution in a single dimension rather than range and azimuth. Additionally, engineers are designing SAR satellites to observe locations and collect multiple images that can be displayed in a series to highlight motion or combined to produce sharper images.
Competition is fierce among SAR startups vying for a position in the growing market for imaging that reveals what is happening on the ground day, night, and through the clouds. There is already strong demand among government agencies for SAR data and the emerging commercial market is expected to eventually overshadow government demand.
Current US remote sensing regulations facilitate the sale of unenhanced data that is “substantially the same as unenhanced data available from non-regulated sources” by the US Department of Commerce, under the rule of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published in May.
For now, Banazadeh says that rule means that stricter regulations apply to the sale of SAR images with a resolution better than 50 centimeters by 50 centimeters.
“As regulations catch up with technologies, we will update and publish even higher resolution images, up to 25 centimeters,” Banazadeh said. “All of these advancements, innovations, and milestones will ultimately help our US government commercial and international partner customers make critical, high-impact, and potentially life-saving decisions.”
While awaiting the launch of Sequoia, Capella focused on developing the constellation infrastructure, including automatic satellite mapping via Inmarsat geostationary satellites, cloud-based data processing, and data delivery through from an API or the company’s web application.
All of those elements are working well, Banazadeh said.
