Open Cosmos Launches Innovative Satellites for Unprecedented Environmental Insight

Open Cosmos, a UK company providing accessible satellite platforms for space missions, has made public the successful orbital arrival of its most recent satellites, MANTIS and PLATERO. These satellites were part of the SpaceX Transporter-9 mission launched at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, United States. Both satellites, joining the OpenConstellation initiative, are set to transform Earth Observation (EO) and environmental monitoring on a global scale.

Utilizing Space Technology for Environmental Monitoring

MANTIS and PLATERO will monitor Earth’s environment from space. PLATERO, commissioned by the Andalusian Agricultural and Fisheries Management Agency (AGAPA) through Junta de Andalucia, combines EO, Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) onboard processing. This satellite will track biodiversity, desertification, emergencies like wildfires or floods, and the impact of agriculture on the territory. The data gathered will inform future policies on environmental preservation.

Simonetta Cheli, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programs, congratulated Open Cosmos on launching its satellite. She noted that through commercial initiatives and targeted disruptive innovation funding, ESA can provide a catalyst for European Earth observation businesses. Cheli found it particularly pleasing to witness InCubed reaching the major milestone of its first supported satellite successfully reaching orbit.

MANTIS, the inaugural satellite launched as a part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) InCubed programme, is supported by the UK Space Agency. The satellite hosts an innovative multispectral, high-resolution optical payload for EO from Atlantis. A secondary payload, a high-performance and reconfigurable processing unit manufactured by Ubotica, is also included. This unit is designed to leverage the power of AI to derive onboard insights. The EO data from MANTIS will address the accessibility and periodicity challenges in the energy and mining sector. Additionally, the data will be applied to further applications that will tackle environmental challenges such as climate emergency monitoring and biodiversity conservation.

Open Cosmos Transforming Satellite Imagery

The insights gathered from PLATERO and MANTIS are channelled into DataCosmos, the Open Cosmos pioneering platform, where raw images are converted into quantitative data ripe for analysis. This revolutionary platform converts satellite imagery into numerical data, which can be processed through advanced algorithms. This process generates actionable intelligence, offering solutions to some of the world’s most critical environmental challenges.