ABB, EarthDaily ink $30M deal for satellite constellation imagery

ABB and EarthDaily are ready to boost Earth imaging capabilities including using 22-spectral-band imagery of objects as small as five meters as part of a $30 million deal. The contract will see ABB – a global technology company headquartered in Switzerland with Canadian headquarters near Montreal – supply multispectral imaging systems to Canadian data and analytics company EarthDaily Analytics (EDA). ABB's systems will be placed on 10 satellites (9 primes and 1 spare) that will form part of the EarthDaily satellite constellation network, which aims to provide high-quality, 22-spectral-band imagery of objects as small as five meters. The partnership will see ABB's imaging systems capture data, after which EDA's artificial intelligence analytics system will examine and analyze the information to send a series of "actionable insights" to customers. The constellation will thus assist decision-makers for areas including global warming, crop health, forest fires and other phenomena that affect natural resources, the companies say, along with industries such as maritime shipping. "They've been super cooperative with us in developing specifications for the system, and were a very, very professional and organized company," Peter Duggan, EarthDaily's vice-president of programs, told SpaceQ of relations so far with ABB. "In the past, we've looked at a number of other sources of supply for this camera, and we ran a competition – they were the clear winners," Duggan added, saying the resolution, number of channels and the overall system will work well with the analytics programs meant to provide rapid insights to EarthDaily customers. Duggan noted that once his company's satellites are ready in about 2023, ABB's imagery will provide a welcome addition to existing services that EarthDaily Analytics provides for its customers from other satellite systems, such as those from the European Space Agency Copernicus system. ABB sensors will provide 22-spectral-band imagery of objects as small as five meters on EarthDaily satellites. Credit: ABB. The existing satellite data, Duggan adds, varies in quality and timing (sometimes only available once every few days of weeks) depending on the source of the satellite. ABB in combination with EarthDaily's constellation's expected revisit rate, he said, "provides a source of high-quality information on a daily basis, which really doesn't exist at the moment." EarthDaily Analytics was reborn from the insolvency of UrtheCast nearly a year ago, after private equity firm Antarctica Capital announced its formation in April 2021. EarthDaily reported strong growth during its quarterly results in January. As for ABB Canada, one of the company's notable recent contracts was a $2.25 million deal from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in April 2021 for the Cosmological Advanced Survey Telescope for Optical and UV Research (CASTOR) concept. ABB's space optics and instruments are used by numerous customers in the space and defense industries. The company's space business has been adding on more commercial customers in recent years, the Canadian branch's Marc-André Soucy, director of remote sensing, space and defense, told SpaceQ. Soucy noted that the timelines for commercial customers tend to be quite swift as compared with government procurements, and imagers also tend to be smaller as the commercial satellites are smaller. ABB is flexing its processes to make sure it serves both of these markets with high-quality products, he said. ABB's distinction in the industry not only comes from a generation of work in space sensors, but also its industrial sensors, he said, terming this blending of technology a "hybrid culture" that is nearly unique in the space industry. "What we have done so far is really leveraging technologies that we have developed in other projects – not always space projects, but it could be defense projects," Soucy said as an example of the benefits of the hybrid culture. The culture has been key, he said, to meeting swift timelines with good products. "You absolutely need to have some heritage [technology]. Because with the timelines that are required, you cannot develop from-scratch technology – that's for sure." Soucy added that the new contract is expected to help garner attention for similar constellation projects in the future, since EarthDaily is a reference customer. EarthDaily's Duggan added that if EarthDaily ever wants to expand their constellation, which is quite possible, based on work to date ABB will likely be high on EarthDaily's list of imaging companies being considered for more satellites.