Ireland’s Ubotica claims Earth observation first

Launched in March 2024 in partnership with Open Cosmos, the CogniSAT-6 mission is powered by Ubotica’s ‘SPACE:AI’ platform, enabling the satellite itself to process the images it captures rather than simply gathering data to downlink back to Earth. According to Ubotica, these real-time insights – labelled ‘Live Earth Intelligence’ – have the potential to enhance economic growth, climate monitoring, and global security.

“This is a paradigm shift for Earth Observation,” said Fintan Buckley, CEO of Dublin-based Ubotica. 

“The industry has long sought a model of live Earth intelligence, where insights are generated onboard satellite and instantly relayed to ground. The CogniSAT-6 mission is the first to achieve Live Earth Intelligence, revolutionising the capabilities and cost-efficiency of Earth Observation.”

CogniSAT-6 recently captured an image over Khor Fakkan in the UAE. Ubotica says that SPACE:AI was able to identify 142 ships outside the port within minutes, processing 21.3 km² of image data per second. Rather than existing methods that must wait until a satellite passes over a downlink ground station to transmit images, CogniSAT-6 uses a real-time inter-satellite communications network to immediately relay insights to ground.