Insights from Space: Remote Imaging Can Change the Future of Public Infrastructure

Space-based remote sensing is becoming increasingly important to infrastructure owners and operators.

Satellite imagery from Landsat and Sentinel-2 Earth observation satellites are provided by Esri. (Picture courtesy of Esri.)

Satellite imagery from Landsat and Sentinel-2 Earth observation satellites are provided by Esri. (Picture courtesy of Esri.)

As the effects of climate change become more visible, the players in the infrastructure business—whether they are in the private sector or in public agencies—are being asked by investors and lenders to consider how their assets will be impacted by changes. Valuable insights are being extracted from all this data, which in turn is shaping how infrastructure projects are designed, engineered, constructed and managed for success. Thus, data captured from space that reveals what’s happening on Earth is becoming a critical element of what public-private partnership (P3) investors bring to projects.

Beau Legeer, director, Imagery and Remote Sensing at Esri.

Beau Legeer, director, Imagery and Remote Sensing at Esri.

Imagery from space has become a valuable part of efforts to monitor infrastructure. We asked Beau Legeer, Esri’s director of Imagery and Remote Sensing, for his assessment. He argues that “owners of infrastructure can use satellite-based imagery sources to monitor the location and condition of their assets reliably. This can be done by using high-resolution imagery with identification methods to identify and catalog assets and then repeat these processes to check on changes.”

Infrastructure investors can utilize satellite-based imagery sources to verify and validate the existence and condition of assets of interest. Legeer thinks that “very high-resolution data from aerial platforms and sources can inspect and monitor the condition of critical parts of infrastructure to assist owners and parties of interest and further validate asset condition and function.” Esri’s imagery tools are used by infrastructure organizations to extract insights, identify changes and add features to their systems of record. Satellite and other overhead sources provide the raw materials that power these workflows—and Legeer argues that they “add value to infrastructure owners and investors.”

Commercial space-based radio frequency (RF) data is a new source of global knowledge. Some companies are harnessing this data in their efforts to obtain breakthrough insights into environmental changes, shifts in global security and humanitarian challenges around the world. RF data is now being fused with other forms of intelligence, such as satellite imagery or synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) data. SAR is an important form of information that is widely used to create two-dimensional images or three-dimensional reconstructions of objects. When used together, these different forms of information can further contextualize any given situation on the ground.

Adam Bennett, senior director, Product Marketing at HawkEye 360.

Adam Bennett, senior director, Product Marketing at HawkEye 360.

HawkEye 360 is an RF data analytics company. According to Adam Bennett, senior director of Product Marketing, the company “currently has 12 satellites orbiting in clusters of three, with multiple additional launches scheduled for 2022. These satellite clusters detect, characterize, and geolocate a variety of RF emissions from many kinds of equipment.” Bennett provided a list that includes such items as automatic identification systems, marine radio systems, navigation radar systems, satellite phones and emergency radio beacons. Once signals of interest are identified, the HawkEye 360 satellites can track changes in activity on their subsequent revisits over that particular area of the Earth’s surface.

With its satellites now fully operating in Earth orbit, HawkEye 360 has become the undisputed trailblazer in the collection of space-based RF data. The company’s aim is to equip customers—from any point on Earth—with the actionable insights needed to run businesses, manage governments or track changes in the natural environment, the business ecosystem, and/or the larger global community.

HawkEye 360’s satellites can also detect sources of GPS interference and jamming, which are used as an electronic countermeasure to block or inundate signals with false information.

Here’s one interesting example of how insights can help those who are focused on infrastructure in the coldest Northern regions of the world: HawkEye 360’s RF data yielded insights into the year-round surge of activity across the Arctic. This boom in marine activity is one of the consequences of shrinking sea ice. HawkEye 360 identified vessels traveling through channels that did not previously exist. And it detected varying concentrations of very high frequency (VHF) communication in unexpected places—an indication that more organizations will require better ports to support all the new shipping activity. According to Bennett, “the insights which HawkEye 360 derives from its RF signal collection reveal human activity in response to climate change, not climate change itself. As the Arctic melts, aggressive actors and nation states are seizing opportunities to stake their claims in the region.”

RF data is now being used to illuminate major shifts in economic activity, such as the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bennett offers one helpful example: Italy contains some of the biggest shipping ports in all of Europe, transporting 13.9 percent of the EU’s freight volume. When Italy’s northern provinces emerged as an early COVID-19 hotspot in Europe, the country implemented strong control measures to stem the tide of the pandemic. HawkEye 360 was able to see the immediate impact of the lockdown, as maritime activity around Italy dropped by half.

HawkEye 360 identified radar data points for vessels traveling within 50 km of the Italian coastline. The company compared the X-band navigation radar data for 11 days in early March 2020, before the country-wide lockdown, against 11 days in the middle of March 2020, when the lockdown was in full force.

The difference was stark: there was a 51 percent drop in maritime activity between the periods of comparison. Interestingly, vessel traffic spiked around the start of the lockdown, potentially indicating a surge of people leaving the country for safer tourism opportunities. By examining changes in vessel patterns, HawkEye 360 data revealed how significantly the lockdown impacted Italy and harmed the national economy by cutting off tourism and reducing trade. RF data collection and analysis illuminates different patterns of human activity to help us make better decisions for a safer and more sustainable world.

Tom Stroup, president of the Satellite Industry Association.

Satellite Industry Association’s President, Tom Stroup, addresses satellite industry leaders during SIA’s 2022 leadership summit in Washington, DC.

The providers of space-based remote sensing are the companies that own what space experts call the “orbiting platforms.” Today these commercial satellite companies are experiencing unprecedented growth, thanks to recent leaps in technological innovation. According to Tom Stroup, president of the Satellite Industry Association (SIA), “commercial remote sensing satellites are being designed and deployed faster and more economically than ever before.” Among those companies are names that many will know:  Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Airbus, Thales and Northrup Grumman. But there are many other well-financed and profitable firms that are less recognizable, such as Planet Labs, SkyWatch, cloudeo, Satellite Imaging Corp, BlackSky, Orbital Insight, Space Dynamics Laboratory, Millennium Engineering and Integration, Maxar, Astro Digital and EarthDaily Analytics.

SIA has been reminding government and corporate leaders that these space-based assets provide ever-increasing amounts of critical data that businesses and governments need to access on a real-time basis. The data streams include weather and storm imaging, wildfire events, and crop and forest conditions. It also includes defense and homeland security imaging, such as troop movements, plus a host of other Earth observation datasets that support enterprise and government customers to make decisions based on accurate information.

Stroup says that “because of the industry’s recent growth, satellite start-up firms including remote sensing companies, are capturing the attention of the investment community. The number of venture capital firms investing in [the] start-up space increased to 410 in 2021 from just 223 firms in 2020, while a record number of satellite M&A deals were closed in 2021 and several space start-ups went public, including two satellite remote sensing companies.”