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This will be to provide advanced hyperspectral situational awareness information, for monitoring and helping to manage civil security and crisis events.
As part of a three-year R&D programme, the company will develop and test on-board hyperspectral data processing, Sat-to-Sat, and Sat-to-IoT mobile communications. This will be demonstrated with a field study with the Finnish authorities, to improve border surveillance by detecting illegal activities along the Baltic Sea area between Finland, Estonia, and Sweden.
Basically, the CSS programme aims to encourage the use of spaceborne systems to better support law enforcement, safety, humanitarian responses, and emergency events.
“Bringing information on any emergency events to first responders as fast as we can has a huge environmental, humanitarian, and security impact,” said Jarkko Antila, CEO of Kuva Space.
“We look forward to collaboratively developing a robust solution to test the end-to-end delivery of insights to the user as part of the CSS program.”
Together with Finnish authorities, Kuva Space will demonstrate the automatic detection of marine vessels via hyperspectral data along with the use of AI. This will create alerts in the case of no Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) signal from the vessel.
Having the AIS or the RF signal turned off raises suspicion that the vessel is involved in criminal activity, highlights the company. Kuva Space will collect and stores the spectral signatures of the vessel for rediscovery attempts and future acquisition.
Kuva Space services
Kuva Space will launch two hyperspectral satellites and its initial services this year.
The first one, Hyperfield-1, is scheduled to launch in July 2024, the first stage of its planned constellation. The company aims to provide gapless monitoring by deploying up to 100 satellites by 2030.
SMART-CONNECT
Under ESA, five nations – Austria, Belgium, Finland, Portugal, and Switzerland – have contributed funding to create a “SMART-CONNECT” consortium, led by by Austrian company Geoville.
As part of this SMART-CONNECT, seven companies – Kuva Space, Epic Blue, INOV, Klepsydra, neXat, Sistema and VITO – aim to improve crisis communications in emergency situations.
“Hyperspectral data opens up a range of new and enhanced applications and services, particularly within the civil security domain,” added the Head of Enterprise, within ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes Directorate, Gordon Campbell. “Kuva Space is one of the leading European companies developing hyperspectral systems, so it is very exciting that the company is a key member of the Smart-Connect consortium.”
“The multi-platform constellation ensures fast revisit, along with the potential for extended persistence and fast tipping – or cueing – that allows for timely and relevant information to reach the hands of first responders when it is needed.”
