TAMPA, Fla. — Wyvern has secured funds for deployable optics expertise that the Canadian startup believes is vital to making a thriving industrial market for hyperspectral imagery.
Following a mixture of non-public and Canadian authorities funding, Wyvern has raised a complete $7.65 million to develop a folding telescope that can enable it to pack extra efficiency into smaller, cheaper-to-launch hyperspectral imaging satellites.
By utilizing deployable optics that may conform to cubesat requirements, Wyvern goals to take away price boundaries to present hyperspectral options which have historically centered on the protection market to industrial prospects for the primary time, in accordance to co-founder and chief working officer Callie Lissinna.
“With deployable optics we will achieve imaging performance as if our satellites cost a hundred times more than they do,” Lissinna advised SpaceInformation in an interview.
“This is what enables us to offer high-resolution hyperspectral imaging at affordable prices that the market hasn’t seen before.”
Lissinna declined to focus on pricing, however stated Wyvern has a provisional U.S. patent for “unique deployable optics technology” after investing closely in analysis during the last 4 years.
“Earth observation companies focused on defense markets don’t face the same pressure to overcome cost barriers as those also tackling commercial markets, like Wyvern,” she famous.
Funding progress
Lissinna stated an funding Wyvern introduced Feb. 7 from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), a Canadian authorities basis that helps environmentally promising applied sciences, funds a “significant amount of what we need to get the first deployable optics satellite into space, and launching a deployable optics satellite is part of the scope of our SDTC project.”
She stated the expertise remains to be being developed within the startup’s services in Edmonton, Alberta, on a timeline that “puts the earliest potential launch in late 2023.”
According to SDTC, it invested 4 million Canadian {dollars} ($3.2 million) within the startup as a result of hyperspectral monitoring might assist Canada scale back agriculture emissions.
The SDTC cash is as well as to $4.5 million Wyvern just lately disclosed elevating final 12 months.
Lissinna expects the primary satellite tv for pc outfitted with Wyvern’s proprietary deployable optics will launch “likely sometime in 2023,” forward of a constellation of 36 satellites “in the next few years.”
However, Scotland-based Clyde Space is presently constructing three 6U cubesats for Wyvern with out an unfolding telescope, which Lissinna stated will launch on a rideshare mission within the fourth quarter of this 12 months.
“The objective with these first three satellites is to get data out to our customers as soon as possible, shake down our data pipeline and image processing software, and serve the agriculture market with valuable hyperspectral data that is not accessible to the market today,” she stated.
But “without deployable optics on a cubesat, you’re looking at a 5-meter ground sampling distance,” she added.
“With the deployable optics we can achieve sub-3-meter ground sampling distance, and maintain the image quality at the same time that’s needed for it to be really useful for analytics.”
Foldable expertise
A much bigger telescope is ready to direct extra mild with mirrors to hyperspectral sensors that enhance decision, and in addition enhance magnification ranges by means of longer focal lengths.
Unlike deployable optics on NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope that launched Dec. 25, Wyvern’s expertise is designed to match on a lot smaller satellites that Lissinna stated allow missions that “are significantly lower cost and have shorter timelines.”
According to Lissinna, different industrial imaging spacecraft with deployable optics, together with artificial aperture radar (SAR) satellites, can not seize imagery within the seen or infrared areas of the spectrum.
“Deployable SAR satellites do not capture any of the valuable spectral information to measure the chemistry of the scenes they are imaging,” she added.
She stated the unfolding telescope expertise may also help “a broader range of applications on Earth, beyond agriculture, because of the increased capabilities of that imaging payload.”
While the preliminary satellites goal to present hyperspectral providers in 32 bands, she stated its deployable telescope would allow imagery in additional bands in an expanded wavelength vary.
To obtain the identical efficiency with out deployable optics, Lissinna stated the satellite tv for pc would wish to have 100 instances the mass.
Future Wyvern satellites can be cubesats of various sizes for various mission wants, she added, with some smaller and others bigger than the three slated to launch this 12 months.
Emerging Hyperspectral competitors
Virginia-based HySpeqIQ, a hyperspectral imagery startup with an preliminary deal with the protection market, plans to begin deploying a constellation of up to 12 small satellites subsequent 12 months, CEO John DeBlasio stated in an e mail.
DeBlasio stated its satellites goal to present sub-5-meter decision throughout 105 bands.
HySpecIQ chosen York Space Systems in November to present the bus and integration providers for the 400-kilogram satellites, that are primarily based on York’s LX-Class platform.
HySpecIQ was based in 2013 with a deal with authorities functions for hyperspectral knowledge, and received a National Reconnaissance Office research contract in 2019.
However, the enterprise introduced the appointment Feb. 9 of enterprise improvement veteran Todd Woods, who as world director of partnerships and advertising can be answerable for increasing “HySpecIQ’s commercial-sector clientele.”
In September, the corporate introduced a $20 million funding from billionaire enterprise capitalist Peter Thiel to speed up its enterprise plans.