Solving our earthly problems with images from space

With next-generation satellite technology, leaders in tech, national security and disaster relief can better understand and react to the world around them

By WP BrandStudio

Our ability to monitor, analyze and communicate across planet earth is unprecedented. But to do that, we need timely and reliable information to guide not only our personal decisions, but those that may affect business, economic activity and entire countries.

Transparency on a global scale demands the kind of near real-time information that is available only from space through imaging satellites. When integrated with other data sources, including ground-based intelligence or pattern recognition driven by machine learning, space-based imagery produces Earth Intelligence—actionable insight about our changing planet.

Reliable Earth Intelligence can give world leaders a glimpse into the covid-19 pandemic’s impact, shed light on military activity that sparks international conflict or track the patterns of climate change.

It starts where satellites are made

Satellite imagery has become ubiquitous, lighting up mobile phones, powering the maps for ride-sharing applications and helping hikers locate trailheads. Most of the imagery making these things possible comes from Maxar, the leader in Earth Intelligence and Space Infrastructure and a company that’s been serving governments and large commercial enterprises with satellite imagery and derived intelligence for decades.

But Maxar’s expertise starts on the clean room floor in its factories, where it has built spacecraft and robotics for more than 60 years.

The missions of the more than 90 Maxar-built spacecraft currently in orbit range from communications for giants such as SiriusXM and DirectTV to earth observation satellites for information about environmental and human activity around the globe. Maxar’s extensive partnership with NASA goes back to the Gemini and Apollo missions and continues today with the Artemis program that will return astronauts to the Moon before sending them on to Mars.

Maxar’s newest deployment is WorldView Legion, a set of next-generation imaging satellites that will be owned and operated in-house to support customer missions. Set to launch in 2021, WorldView Legion will offer unprecedented and more reliable visibility into the changes that are shaping our planet.

WorldView Legion’s outcomes

Maxar customers, which include multiple federal agencies and Silicon Valley tech giants, require accurate, up-to-date information to protect national security and serve consumer mapping needs.

These missions put a high value on the accuracy and timeliness of information. In applications that map vehicle navigation systems, help plan for national security missions and coordinate disaster relief and response actions, clear and reliable information can make a difference. In the precise positioning of a vehicle or getting aid workers to the areas most in need, outdated or unclear information could literally put lives at risk.

For analysts and data scientists charged with assuring mission success, the higher the quality and timeliness of satellite data input, the more reliable and relevant the output created by sophisticated, computer-generated, object identification or pattern recognition algorithms.

WorldView Legion, which is slated to include six satellites at first, will image the Earth’s most active areas more frequently, and with greater clarity and accuracy than ever before. The images captured by WorldView Legion’s satellites show an object’s true location on the ground within five meters, compared with the 25 or 100 meters other satellite image sources can guarantee. That’s too great a margin of error when mapping metro areas or depending on coordinates to send resources to the field.

Combined with Maxar’s existing four satellites, WorldView Legion will give customers the ability to see some areas up to 15 times a day.

That frequency can monitor traffic patterns, assess the movement of military vehicles or see near real-time conditions in hurricane-affected areas, with higher resolution than that available from small satellite constellations operated by other earth observation companies.

Building the future of Earth Intelligence

WorldView Legion’s design and function map to the customer missions that Maxar has been serving for two decades. The new satellites are significantly more cost efficient over those built by other vendors because of improvements in size, weight and power. The initial capital outlay also is lower, with WorldView Legion’s six satellites costing $600 million, compared with the $800 million price tag to build and launch Maxar’s most recent satellite.

The new satellites are built on a proprietary and proven platform that allows flexible design and customizable components suited to serve various space programs and improve accessibility for a variety of commercial space ventures.

WorldView Legion reinforces Maxar’s role as the trusted partner organization for global insights derived from geospatial information. Maxar’s innovation in spacecraft design and manufacturing is opening vistas to use space for a better understanding of our world.

Learn more about how Maxar and WorldView Legion are fueling Earth Intelligence at Maxar.com.

The Washington Post newsroom was not involved in the creation of this content.