Small sats, smart analytics

If you are planning to keep an eye on your competition, it might help to use satellite images. You can check, for instance, how busy is the manufacturing plant of your rival. Satellite images can track the movement of people and product over a period and see how many trucks carrying raw materials or final products are at the facility. Add a layer of data analytics and you can get a fair idea of your rival’s situation. 

Small satellites with focused capabilities are offering data insights for commercial use. Smart start-ups are now using cube satellites for getting data that companies can deploy for a variety of uses. More importantly, data analytics is being used with satellite imagery to get insights which was not easy earlier. 

Deploying satellite images has long been the preserve of governments across the world. From civil to defence matters, the satellites were meant mostly for usage by government agencies. In recent years, the weather data gleaned from satellite imagery was commercialised and sold to private enterprises. 

Commercial satellite imaging market is rising sharply because of the increasing use of cube satellites. Start-ups like Orbital Insight and SpaceKnow are offering a range of services for their clients across the world. 

Globally, the market for this segment is expected to be $5.2 billion in three years. The traditional use of environment mapping, border surveillance is now moving into more precise objectives. Not just business rivals, even regulators and governments keep track of business activities using information which is now easily available from commercial sources. The government of Tanzania for instance discovered that a mining company was under-reporting diamond exports. It was suspected that the company was directly flying out diamonds from a private airfield without reporting the exports to the government. 

Several of such errant behaviour can be caught by government agencies using satellite imagery from private companies. Earlier the governments who did not own satellites would have to seek inputs from friendly countries. But commercial availability of satellite imagery is exposing almost all activities to seekers. 

ISRO has been deploying small satellites too contributing to the trend. “About 7,000 small sats are due to be launched over the next 10 years, i.e. a six-fold increase from the 1,200 units launched over the past decade. About 50 constellations, two of which are mega constellations, account for over 80 per cent of the small sat count,” says a report by Euroconsult. The use of satellites for internet of things and connected devices will drive the commercial usage. “By 2022, an average of 580 small sats will be launched every year as a result of initial constellation deployment. This compares to an annual average of 190 satellites launched over the past five years,” says Maxime Puteaux, senior consultant at Euroconsult and editor of the report. 

Another company HawkEye 360 is sending up a collection of nano satellites that will track radio frequency signals over specific areas. The data will then be analysed for maritime or terrestrial activity. 

The combination of using artificial intelligence to analyse data sent by lots of small satellites is proving to be a killer app. The use of AI can help stitch together various bits of information to give a picture that a simple image can’t. 

From large satellites to swarms that orbit around the earth, this is a significant shift for the commercial world. As the government monopoly on such images is reduced, virtually every physical economic activity will be open for analysis. Companies and enterprises will find that their claims of growth will be keenly watched by the eyes in the sky.