It is widely known that key information used in many industries such as meteorology, logistics, navigation, oil and gas, agriculture, ecology, and others, comes from space, via Earth observation (EO) satellites. Having this data in a short time frame is essential. Existing ground segment solutions are heavily based on hardware, and they are clearly unable to follow growing demands from the space segment. This creates a data acquisition bottleneck in the face of exponential increase of the amount of data to be transmitted to the ground.
The objective of this project is to provide an innovative, completely software-based data acquisition solution for the EO market: Blink, which is disruptive enough to compete with the existing oligopoly in this market segment. The EO market is very interesting as it is being boosted by a skyrocketing growth of NewSpace start-ups such as SpaceX, OneWeb and Planet, to name just a few. Moving from conventional hardware solutions towards flexible and dynamic software solutions, as well as moving satellite ground systems and services into the cloud environment is an extremely promising recent trend.
The expected project outcome is a Blink digitizer and a pure-software receiver for EO ground stations which will enable assembling a fully performant ground station at a fraction of currently typical time and cost. This will benefit not just the growing segment of start-up companies, but also big governmental missions worldwide, including programmes such as the EU's flagship programme Copernicus. Humanitarian missions will also benefit from Blink. Higher ground station capacity and affordability will significantly reduce time to get satellite images of disaster-struck areas. Rescue teams will be able to act faster, and save lives, property, and the environment.
The successful completion of the project and the support of the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument help ensure the company’s fast expansion of disruptive innovation in the Earth Observation market in Europe and worldwide.
