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Space-based imagery and analytics company BlackSky has secured a US$7 million contract renewal to provide space-based imagery and analytics monitoring services to an international government customer.
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The contract reportedly involves access to automated high-frequency, low-latency imagery and analytics from the US-headquartered company, according to a statement published on 31 May.
The international government customer will reportedly have the ability to draw from multiple intelligence sources through the tasking and analytics platform (BlackSky Spectra) with direct access to high-resolution, electro-optical constellation and access to partner constellations for all-weather, day and night, and high-resolution imagery.
“With disruptive speed and economics BlackSky is delivering unparalleled value to multiple international ministries of defense with automated real-time high-frequency, low-latency imagery and analytics products,” BlackSky chief executive officer Brian E. O’Toole said.
“Our software-first approach enables immediate and scalable access to commercially available AI-assisted tasking-to-delivery systems that ensure mission-critical intelligence arrives in-hand to operators and analysts in a matter of minutes.”
“BlackSky Spectra is an industry-leading, data-agnostic SaaS platform that can fuse data from multiple sources and is well-suited to solve the diverse set of critical national security challenges our customers face every day.
“In addition to having a highly intuitive user interface, Spectra fits seamlessly into customer workflows and provides immediate operational mission value at scale.”
Earlier this year, the supplier of satellite imagery and space-based intelligence secured a US$2 million United States defence contract to provide data to train artificial intelligence.
The contract was awarded by the defence contractor Axient on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Axient in September 2023 won a contract from AFRL worth up to $25 million for space experiments.
Axient will use BlackSky’s satellite imagery and data analytics platform to support studies and technology demonstrations focused on tracking moving objects from space. Specifically, these studies will “collect and annotate thousands of BlackSky multi-frame burst images to train moving target artificial intelligence models for commercial motion imagery”, BlackSky said in a public statement on 4 March.
Multi-frame burst images taken by satellites refer to sequences of consecutive video frames captured by satellites within a short time frame, typically seconds. Using this data, the AFRL experiments will seek to identify moving objects from space more accurately and recognise patterns of life.
Multi-frame burst images are collected in rapid succession during a single satellite pass over an area of interest. “With multiple view angles captured within a matter of seconds, burst imagery can be used to generate 3D volumetric products and very accurate movement-oriented detection analytics,” the company said.
The contract includes access to BlackSky’s Spectra satellite-tasking and analytics platform.
AFRL, located at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, awarded Axient, based in Huntsville, Alabama, a $25 million task order in September 2023 for “integrated space experiments” to be performed over the next three years. Axient awarded BlackSky a $2 million task order in November 2023.
