GHGSat, a global emissions monitoring company, has signed a memorandum of intent with the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.
The deal will see GHGSat providing 5% of the GHGSat-C1 Iris satellite imaging capacity for free. The CSA and ESA will use that capacity for remote sensing, climate research, and data validation projects according to a GHGSat Tweet.
The CSA is pleased to work with @esa, and proud to collaborate with Canadian industry and science community on technology and application development for new space missions to better understand greenhouse gas emissions. https://t.co/yaANxMYIU9 — CanadianSpaceAgency (@csa_asc) September 9, 2019
GHGSat made the announcement at ESA’s Earth Observation Phi Week conference. The conference is being live streamed.
The GHGSat-C1 Iris satellite was to have launched this month on a Arianespace Vega launch, however a failure of the last Vega launch in July prompted a delay until the investigation was over.
That investigation reported that a second stage motor was the likely cause. Arianespace is planning on returning the Vega launcher into service in early 2020. GHGSat-C1 is scheduled to be on that first launch.