New Space Pioneer

British remote sensing firm Earth-i (Booth 1638) released last week the first color video taken by its VividX2 small satellite prototype. The vehicle’s core payload is an ultra high-definition camera that captures high-resolution images and two-minute bursts of color video footage as it passes over target locations from sun-synchronous polar orbit. Earth-i touts VividX2 as the first commercial spacecraft with full color video capabilities.

The publicly available collection of footage will be on display throughout GEOINT 2018, but is just the tip of the iceberg for VividX2. The satellite’s full datasets are being used to develop and enhance data analytics capabilities for Earth-i, including applications built on computer vision and machine learning algorithms.

“The depth and quality of data we can now acquire takes Earth Observation-based big data analytics to a new level. The way we capture video allows for a broader range of contextual insights to be derived than is possible with traditional still imagery,” said Earth-i CEO Richard Blain in a press release last week.

Visitors to Earth-i’s booth can participate in discussions about the satellite, the company’s big data analytics systems, and other algorithms that extract value from VividX2 imagery.

Headline Image: A still frame from VividX2 video footage of Dubai International Airport.