NASA Plans Additional Commercial Smallsat Data, Imagery Procurement

Kevin Murphy, a NASA program executive, said the space agency has determined that Earth science data from two commercial satellite operators meet its quality and utilization requirements, SpaceNews reported Thursday.

NASA plans to continue procurement of imagery products from Maxar Technologies (NYSE: MAXR) and Planet through the Private Sector Small Constellation Satellite Data Product Pilot program, the report noted.

Maxar, Planet and Spire received sole-source contracts in September 2018 to provide test smallsat data sets.

The report said NASA continues to evaluate Spire’s data offering and aims to create an on-ramp process to increase the number of vendors that can support the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program.

Murphy added the agency seeks unlimited access to data and imagery from an International Space Station-based hyperspectral sensor that was jointly built by the German Aerospace Center and Teledyne Brown Engineering.

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