AGU Fall Conference, New Orleans, Satavia announced its partnership with Orbital Micro Systems Ltd. (OMS), a leader in space system applications and advanced instrumentation for small satellite missions. The announcement took place at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Conference in New Orleans. Satavia will utilize the high temporal resolution weather data provided by OMS to enhance its solutions which allow aircraft original equipment manufacturers and operators to minimize unscheduled aircraft maintenance caused by environmental factors.

“Satavia supported the OMS In Orbit Demosntration project proposal and is preparing to be an early adopter of OMS data for operational atmospheric environmental modelling,” said Adam Durant, chief executive officer of Satavia. “Unscheduled maintenance of aircraft is disruptive and costly for airline operators. With OMS datasets, we can enhance our observational capability to identify and predict in-flight encounters with high-altitude icing, and other environment-related factors that can impact maintenance planning. Access to the enhanced atmospheric data from OMS satellites will enable operators to proactively schedule maintenance, and reduce costs and operational disruption.”

OMS chief executive officer William Hosack noted: “Satavia has been an excellent partner and advisor throughout the development of the GEMS program, providing feedback and insight for addressing the commercial aspects of space-based weather data applications. Satavia’s digital environmental intelligence application is one of many critical use cases in airline operations made possible by more accurate and timely weather data such as providing near real-time severe weather warnings that can help pilots and flight planners avoid costly turbulence and storms. We look forward to a mutually beneficial engagement with Satavia that will benefit all stakeholders in the aviation sector.”

Do you have ideas for improving airplanes and airport safety and efficiency? We offer funding and support with SPACE-BASED SERVICES FOR SMART AIRPORTS.

About Satavia 

Satavia Ltd. is located in Cambridge, UK, and offers aircraft engine manufacturers and airlines digital environmental intelligence on atmospheric contaminants to improve the safety, performance and operating costs of aviation. Satavia aggregates cutting-edge software technologies developed in Atmospheric Science with Artificial Intelligence and offers data solutions to engineering problems affecting the aviation industry. Satavia recently appeared in the 2017 Tällt Ventures Disrupt 100 list of businesses with the most potential to influence, change or create new global markets. For more information about Satavia, please visit www.satavia.com.

Farmers manage almost half of all European land area, making agriculture a dominant industry in Europe. A wave of the AgTech startups, initiated by the acquisition of Climate Crop by Monsanto in 2013, has reached Europe, where a startup activity is growing in the AgTech domain during last 3–4 years. Three of them are powered by Space at ESA Business Applications:

HummingBird Technologies, UK (total funding — NA) — HummingBird Tech is a company that uses drones with customized sensors and satellite to gather data and imagery to be used for precision agriculture. They make use of advanced machine learning algorithms and computer vision to provide insights on crop health. Their products include detection of crop diseases, nutrient optimization and more.

Gamaya, Switzerland (total funding USD 7.4M) — Through drone-based hyperspectral imaging, satellite data and artificial intelligence, along with the weather information, Gamaya helps to improve the efficiency and sustainability of farming businesses. They focus on delivering various crop and region-specific agronomy solutions like planting efficiency analysis, yield forecasting, weeds detection, detection of nutrients, and more.

AgriCircle, Switzerland (total funding — NA) — With a focus on maximizing yields, AgriCircle gives farmers an end-to-end software system that covers things from variable rate applications of herbicides and seeds, all the way to field history, data analytics, and emissions. Germany is the main market for the Company.

Do you also have an idea for business in AgTec? We offer funding and support for Organic Best Practice.

It has always been an expensive and time consuming mission for industries around the world to obtain quality water depth data.

With the Bathymetry demonstration project now complete, TCarta (a global provider of marine geospatial products) have launched their Bathymetrics Data Portal - the first of its kind, allowing users to search, purchase and automatically download highly accurate water depth information directly to their computers.

Satellite technology is quickly catching up with Sonar and LIDAR to measure water depths across the world and the information gathered from a sophisticated commercial constellation of optical satellites has been collated and used to populate this Portal.

The Bathymetrics Data Portal has been created with data from TCarta, DHI (experts in water environments) and DigitalGlobe (the world’s leading provider of high-resolution satellite imagery).

There is a high demand for Bathymetric products within many industries across the world including port construction, environmental monitoring and energy infrastructure development.

Using satellite imagery to measure water depth has proven to not only be a more efficient way to gather this information, it’s also faster and more accessible. Customers can now buy ready-made, instantly available high resolution 2m Bathymetry at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods.

AECOM, a global engineering firm, has been an early adopter of satellite derived bathymetry technology, making very good use of this data in order for their work to be more economical and less time consuming.

Kenny Monteath, Regional Director at AECOM said: "We have worked closely with the TCarta Team as an Involved User throughout their ESA Demonstration Project. Our early involvement in the requirements and testing phases included AECOM receiving bathymetry data and successfully applying this into a port construction and design project. AECOM are now using the Bathymetrics data portal on a regular basis to understand bathymetry availability and make the most of fast and easy access to high quality data."

Richard Flemmings, Operations Director TCarta said: "The ESA program has made it possible for us to grow our business by lowering the price point of satellite derived bathymetry, while at the same time opening up the technology to new markets who are now able to access the data instantly. Having the backing of ESA has added significant positive impact when promoting to customers."

With new areas of the world constantly being uploaded to the portal, users will always have access to the best available bathymetric information.