British ‘New Space’ pioneer and BARSC member Earth–i has announced that it has ordered the first five satellites from SSTL (Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd) for its new Earth Observation (EO) constellation.

Earth-i is building the first constellation in the world able to provide full-colour video – and the first European-owned constellation able to provide both video and still images.

This constellation will be a major leap forward for the Earth Observation industry providing a number of innovative capabilities including:

• The provision of high-frame rate images with resolutions better than one metre for any location on Earth.
• The ability to film moving objects such as vehicles, vessels and aircraft in ultra-high-definition colour video.
• Revisiting the same location multiple times per day with agile satellites that can be pointed to image specific areas of interest.
• Rapid tasking of satellites to take images or video, and fast data download within minutes of acquisition.

Footage recorded by Earth-i’s fleet of satellites will be available for analysis within minutes of being taken and will improve decision-making and response times in a wide variety of scenarios from change detection to object identification, from disaster response to infrastructure monitoring.