UP42 has announced the UP42 Airbus Challenge in the 2021 Copernicus Masters Competition. With EUR 100,000 in awards at stake, including commercial satellite data from the Airbus OneAtlas Living Library, UP42 seeks researchers, companies, and students to submit algorithm development ideas to provide new ways of performing EO analytics.
Copernicus Masters is an international competition held …

Terra Drone has successfully conducted visual inspection of flare stacks for Chile’s state-owned energy company ENAP. In this project, three flare stacks – each about 70m tall – were inspected in 45 minutes using drones. This proved to be significantly more cost-effective and quicker, than the conventional method, of engaging the services of a professional …

U.S. Geological Survey scientists have developed and made available a new mapping resource that can identify the most vulnerable marshes across the contiguous U.S. through a combination of remote-sensing and satellite technologies. These maps provide critical information to land managers and help inform marsh conservation and restoration strategies without costly site-specific or labor-intensive assessments.
The USGS …

Scottish Forestry, the government agency responsible for forestry policy, support and regulations in Scotland, is using specially commissioned aerial photography to help identify trees in distress. Trees are facing an increased threat due to pests, disease and climate change, and, as a result of social distancing regulations, Scottish Forestry was unable to undertake its usual …

DeepMap, Inc., a global leader in autonomous driving technology, has announced DeepMap RoadMemory™, a crowdsourced mapping service.
RoadMemory enables automakers to accelerate the creation and deployment of large-scale digital maps via data collected from their own fleets of passenger vehicles and trucks. It is designed to expand geographic coverage more quickly and support hands-off autonomous driving …

Russia plans to launch four spherical satellites into orbit in 2025, for calibrating ground optical stations and serving other purposes for the Glonass navigation system, state procurement data shows.

According to files from Russian space agency Roscosmos, released on the state procurement website, Russia plans to launch the four satellites from the Vostochny spaceport using the Russian Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket.

Three Gonets-M communications satellites will be launched together with the four spherical satellites.

In January, …

Acting on behalf of the European Commission, ESA has signed two contracts for an overall amount of €1.47 billion, to design and build the first batch of the second generation of Europe’s Galileo navigation satellites.
Following an intense process of open competition, these contracts have been awarded to Thales Alenia Space (Italy) and Airbus Defence & Space (Germany) to create …

The Hera Drone Hub has announced Altitude Angel, the world’s most trusted UTM (unified traffic management, or U-Space) technology provider, is to provide UTM through its GuardianUTM Enterprise platform to the world’s first urban test centre in a CTR.
With the inauguration of Hera Drone Hub in March this year, the Spanish city of Zaragoza became …

Kongsberg Geospatial, developers of the TerraLens Geospatial Software Development Kit (SDK), and Pegasus Imagery Ltd. an aerospace company developing advanced autonomous aircraft and sensor systems, announced today that they have signed an MOU to work together to advance the development of safe, autonomous Unmanned Aircraft.
Pegasus designs, manufactures and operates autonomous Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to …

Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace, has announced its partnership with the Telangana government to lead a consortium tasked with the development and execution of the drone deliveries of medical supplies to remote areas under the ‘Medicines from the Sky’ project. As part of the consortium, Flipkart will utilise learnings from its tech-enabled supply chain to …