STREAMO | ESA Space Solutions

Objectives of the service

This Demo Project objectives are: to fully test - with potential users - the STREAMO platform, to increase their willingness to pay, by offering them cutting-edge insights through dedicated flights of our innovative stratospheric platforms called CubeHAPS and, finally, to activate, by the end of the project, long-lasting commercial agreements.

The users’ key problems concern the limited temporal and spatial resolution of the acquired satellite imagery: a more flexible and less expensive technology for data gathering is required for customized services and more frequent fast-response scenarios. There is a missing layer of space-based services located in the middle between the satellites and airborne solutions.

The solution proposed enables fast updated monitoring insights from the stratosphere at the regional level, with advanced Earth Monitoring products, including improved index maps (thermal, visible, and multispectral), 3D digital terrain maps, and near-real-time insights. These products are then sold at very competitive pricing to other businesses and institutions by using customized sections of the partner's marketplace.

The final platform combines both tasking and archived data, in synergy with the existing satellite datasets management pipeline, to provide seamless access for the user.

The STREAMO Service on Earth Data Place marketplace is almost ready! Soon we will add our datasets, ready to be sold!

Users and their needs

The users involved in the STREAMO Demonstration Project are located in Europe, mostly in Italy, and they are of two kinds:

The companies and institutions that have the capacity and the knowledge on how to read the datasets and extrapolate useful information. These are downstream companies of the Earth Observation market and the environmental and civil protection agencies.
The companies and institutions that just need the value-added insights, with minimal knowledge of data processing.

We have letters of Intent from infrastructure monitoring companies, traffic management, environmental monitoring, and agriculture fields monitoring.
During the first months of the project, new potential users were approached, including big Italian players in the critical infrastructures monitoring.

We submitted a specific survey to potential users and, as preliminary results, the main users' needs that came out are:

higher revisit rate and higher spatial resolutions compared to satellites
solve the problem with clouds presence
solve the problem with systems integration
more affordable datasets compared to satellites
shorter tasking time

The project challenges to meet the above needs are the following:

persistence capability, in time and space, over a small specific target.

Service/ system concept

The users are supplied with the following type of information and services, when what they are searching for is not found in the existing catalogue:

very-high resolution updated maps and with specific insights when requested. We are already using visible, thermic IR and multispectral sensors. Other payloads are under evaluation.
On-demand flights with a satellite-like tasking request procedure. In this case The User will indicate the output specifications.
Dedicated real-time data provision

Two of the main features are the CubeHAPS capability to operate flexibly (can be used in different periods of day, recursively) and rapidly (maximum in a few hours) in different scenarios, with almost no infrastructures involved.

Once the service will be deployed, the users will have the possibility to gather these advanced Earth monitoring products with the maximum of flexibility and rapidity, in near-real time, with very low pricing.

Space Added Value

We use satellite technologies and assets for localization, attitude control, data transfer between balloons and ground, and the use of Earth Observation satellite products combined with stratospheric ones.

Advanced receivers adopting correction algorithms are used since 2024, providing few cm platform positioning accuracy and georeferencing errors of the images on-ground up to few meters.

Among the telecommunication lines used by our system (both onboard CubeHAPS and on-ground) there are the following:
SATCOM service used for backup BLOS command and tracking.
High-throughput satellite connection service to establish a low latency-link to customers in almost-real-time.

Direct to ground communication links are established using state-of-the-art ground stations’ mechanical and electronic components inherited from the small-sat market.

Our Mission Control System uses technologies, data and software coming directly from the satellite domain:

World Coverage maps for landing risk indices
Weather forecast datasets for HAPS trajectory predictions
Cloud cover maps to evaluate images masking
Space grade telemetry/control protocols

Finally, we use Earth Observation satellite products, including data processing tools used so far by partners, to extract data and information to be provided to customers in combination with derivative products obtained from the stratospheric platforms

Current Status

Since the beginning of the Project we:

Attended the Creative Destruction Lab Space Stream session in Toronto, for network expansion, discussion with downstream experts, and users research
Attended Smart City World Expo in Barcelona at ESA’s stand for potential users research
Attended an intra-regional meeting Piedmont (Italy) - NRW (Germany) in Düsseldorf for commercial and technical partners research
Attended the XII AIT(Italian Association of Remote Sensing) International Conference in Milan, for users research.
Had different direct teleconferences with potential users
Prepared and submitted a detailed survey for potential customers.
Working actively on BDR deliverables (RD, SSA), including internal calls with the partner
Attended Aerospace and Defense Meeting in Turin and New Space Economy Forum in Rome for users research
About to start the advanced post-processing and plan the integration.