ICEYE awarded EMSA contract to enhance maritime ops through SAR
ICEYE today announced the start of a multi-year framework contract with the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) to support their efforts in managing various aspects of maritime operations with Synthetic-Aperture Radar (SAR) data.
Above:
ICEYE SAR satellite nighttime image showing vessel traffic on Mediterranean Sea, nearby Malta.
ICEYE’s imaging is particularly effective for maritime domain awareness applications enabling persistent visibility into large sea areas up to 50,000 km2 with a single image, despite clouds and darkness.
Courtesy ICEYE
Among its many missions, the European Union agency, EMSA, provides technical expertise and operational assistance in reducing the risk of maritime accidents and assisting in response and recovery from marine pollution from ships and oil installations.
The Agency supports the maritime surveillance activities of the national authorities of EU Member States linked with a wide range of coastguard functions. ICEYE will deliver SAR imagery to EMSA over these next years to enhance their operational support to a wide range of European organisations, in the scope of EMSA's Earth Observation Services.
ICEYE owns the world's largest SAR satellite constellation and the data from its spaceborne sensors can be combined with multiple auxiliary information sources from the ground. ICEYE expects that this agreement will improve the efficiency and speed of the incredible work EMSA is doing already.
"Just like our satellites, maritime operations operate around the clock. Radar imaging technology can see the earth day and night and in all weather conditions", said Pekka Laurila, ICEYE Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer. "Space based imagery is an ideal tool to quickly, efficiently and effectively support maritime disaster response and recovery operations, as well as to enforce EU maritime regulations and support local authorities."
At any given time, 70% of the Earth is covered in clouds or darkness. Unlike traditional Earth observation satellites, ICEYE's small radar imaging satellites can form high-resolution images of areas of the Earth in daylight, at night, and through cloud cover. In other words, they can 'see' any part of the Earth multiple times a day.
ICEYE's satellites can collect images over wide areas and even more detailed images over smaller points of interest such as a ship or oil facility. This provides customers with persistent coverage of fast breaking events on the ground in all weather conditions.