Maxar Technologies announced that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has modified Maxar’s remote sensing license to enable the non-Earth imaging (NEI) capability for its current constellation on orbit as well as its next-generation WorldView Legion satellites.
Through this new license authority, Maxar can collect and distribute images of space objects across the Low Earth Orbit (LEO)—the area ranging from 200 kilometres up to 1,000 kilometres in altitude—to both government and commercial customers.
Maxar’s constellation is capable of imaging objects at less than 6-inch resolution at these altitudes, and it can also support tracking of objects across a much wider volume of space.
Taken together, these capabilities can provide customers with accurate information to assist with mission operations and help address important Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and Space Traffic Management (STM) needs.
“Maxar’s NEI capability has been licensed at a pivotal time for the space industry, when the rapid proliferation of space objects is creating an increasingly crowded Low-Earth Orbital environment, creating new risks for government and commercial missions,” said Dan Jablonsky, Maxar President and Chief Executive Officer.
“Thanks to NOAA’s support and hard work, we are now able to leverage our long-held NEI capability to support critical national security missions, help commercial customers better protect and maintain their assets in orbit and provide a new tool to assist with broader space resiliency initiatives,” he added.
The ability to provide high-resolution imagery of space objects is more important than ever. There are more than 4,800 active satellites on orbit today, and Euroconsult estimates that 17,000 more satellites will be launched in the next decade.
At the same, it is estimated that there are millions of pieces of space debris in LEO, and an impact from even the smallest piece of debris can cause significant damage to a satellite in orbit.
NEI can help address these challenges by bringing more transparency to the near-Earth space domain, thus helping operators better protect and maintain their assets.
