In the framework of the ESA Earthnet programme activities, the possibility of integrating new Third Party Missions (TPM) is assessed.

ESA and ICEYE are pleased to announce the opportunity to freely access, up to the end of the year, ICEYE imagery over several demonstration sites, to assess image quality and suitability for several applications: monitoring urban, agricultural and forest environments, and vessel tracking (ship detection).

ESA promotes this opportunity as a data familiarisation phase before the potential formal integration into the Third Party Mission programme of the ESA Earthnet activities.

The data will be accessible directly via the ICEYE delivery system. This can also be reached via the ICEYE product description and detailed information about the satellite is also available.

ICEYE satellite

ICEYE is launching up to nine more SAR satellites by the end of 2019 to form the world's largest SAR satellite constellation. The company plans to increase the number of satellites in the constellation in the following years to increase revisit rates to 3 hours on average.

ICEYE-X1 is ICEYE's first proof-of-concept microsatellite mission with a SAR sensor as its payload. It is also the world's first SAR satellite in this size (under 100kg), enabling radar imaging of the Earth through clouds and even in total darkness; the first instrument resolution was verified to reach under 10 metres, which is to be improved upon in future ICEYE satellite missions.

ICEYE-X2 is scheduled to be launched in 2018. It will have much better imaging capabilities in terms of spatial resolution and imaging modes, and along with X3 and further satellites will form the primary basis for operational data provision to users.

Data offer

Altogether, four demonstration sites with SAR imagery acquired in Stripmap imaging mode orthorectified (Level 2a) are offered for the data quality assessment focusing on several potential applications such as urban (Houston), agricultural (Shantou) and forest area (Island of Sumatra) monitoring, and vessel tracking (Singapore).

A map indicating locations of the ICEYE demonstration sites