Urthecast
UrtheCast was a Vancouver-based Canadian earth observation company. It produced two of the cameras currently in use on the International Space Station. One is a medium resolution camera, while the other is the first ultra-high-definition (UHD) video camera in space. The company went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in June 2013,[2] but was delisted in October 2020 after filing for creditor protection.[3]
 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| TSX: UR | |
| Industry | Space Observation |
| Founded | 10 December 2010  |
| Headquarters | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Don Osborne (CEO) (Chair of the Board) Dr. George Tyc (CTO) Sai Chu (CFO) Wade Larson and Scott Larson (Co-Founders) |
| Products | Remote sensing Geospatial information |
| Revenue | $15.6 million (2018) [1] |
On June 22, 2015, UrtheCast announced plans to place a 16-satellite constellation in orbit called "OptiSAR" to image the earth with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical cameras, in order to provide constant earth observation, regardless of time or weather. The following day, UrtheCast announced it had reached an agreement to buy Deimos Imaging, a Spanish-based earth observation company, as well as its two satellites.
On March 31, 2016, Urthecast announced plans to launch an additional satellite constellation into orbit called "UrtheDaily," which would be used for constant monitoring of the earth's surface.
The UK manufacturer SSTL was contracted to manufacture the satellites, while the Spanish organization "Elecnor Deimos" was contracted to design the ground control functions. The goal was to produce large amounts of earth observation imagery from multiple sensors, and upload the data to a user-friendly, cloud-based platform. The images and data would have been made available for further processing. UrtheDaily was in the final funding stages and was scheduled to launch in 2020.
UrtheCast announced[4] that the Industrial Technologies Office of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada was providing approximately CA$17.6 million (US$13.08 million) in funding. This grant is part of its Strategic Aerospace & Defense Initiative (SADI) program and provided financial support for the ongoing development of UrtheCast’s planned OptiSAR constellation.
In 2018, UrtheCast acquired Geosys from Land O'Lakes, Inc.[5]
UrtheCast could not meet payments in 2019 and eventually went insolvent in 2021. A new start-up, EarthDaily Analytics, was spun out of this insolvency. [6]
Missions
UrtheDaily was a planned global coverage constellation by UrtheCast aiming to acquire high-quality, multispectral imagery, at 5m GSD, all taken simultaneously from the same altitude every day.[7]
SAR-XL is a technology for UrtheCast's OptiSAR Constellation that consists of eight tandem pairs of SAR and Optical Satellites in two orbit planes. UrtheCast is currently developing this technology.[8]
References
- "UrtheCast Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2018 Financial Results".
- UrtheCast Announces the Completion of Reverse Takeover Transaction and Private Placement, Newswire Canada, 24 June 2013.
- "Vancouver satellite-imaging company UrtheCast becomes latest tech firm to seek creditor protection during pandemic". The Kingston Whig-Standard. October 8, 2020.
- "UrtheCast raises CA$17.6 million to support OptiSAR constellation - Geospatial World". Geospatial World. Retrieved 2017-09-21.
- "Land O'Lakes to Sell Geosys for $20 Million". Successful Farming. 2018-08-23. Retrieved 2019-04-08..
- "Optical imagery-focused EarthDaily Analytics emerges from UrtheCast". SpaceNews. 2021-04-21. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
- "UrtheDaily 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 – Gunter's Space Page". Gunter's Space Page. 2021-08-31. Retrieved 2022-03-26..
- Fox, Peter; Tyc, George; Beckett, Keith (2017-06-08). The UrtheCast SAR-XL multi-band, multi-aperture spaceborne SAR system. IEEE Xplore. pp. 1761–1764. doi:10.1109/RADAR.2017.7944492. ISBN 978-1-4673-8823-8. S2CID 33056212. Retrieved 2022-03-26..