ICEYE operates a constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellites to provide rapid earth observation capabilities with frequent revisit times. As of late 2022, the ICEYE constellation consists of 14 operational SAR microsatellites in low Earth orbit. Additional satellites are scheduled for launch to expand coverage and refresh the constellation.
Satellite Design and Capabilities
The ICEYE satellites have a compact microsatellite bus design optimized for frequent and affordable launch opportunities. The satellites have a launch mass under 100 kg and body dimensions around 60 x 40 x 90 cm. Solar panels, antennas, and other appendages expand the span across orbit.
Each ICEYE satellite carries an advanced miniaturized SAR imaging sensor as the primary payload. The X-band SAR can resolve details down to 0.5 – 3 meters and achieves a wide 350 km imaging swath. This enables monitoring of large areas in a single pass. The agile satellites can steer the SAR beam across track to increase accessible imaging locations and off-nadir viewing.
Onboard processing converts the raw radar echoes into complex SAR images for transmission to the ground. This reduces the downlinked data volume by a factor of 10-20 compared to downloading the native echo data. The satellites can store some SAR data onboard as well for later downlink in areas with limited ground station access.
Constellation Operations
The ICEYE satellites operate in sun-synchronous orbits at an altitude around 500 km. Even spacing of orbital planes combined with the wide imaging swaths provides frequent revisits. The constellation aims to image any location on the globe multiple times per day.
The current orbits favor more frequent coverage at high northern latitudes aligned with customer interest and the company’s Finnish roots. However, some planes provide more equatorial and southern views. New satellites continue to expand coverage across latitudes, longitudes, and times of day.
Each ICEYE satellite enjoys a design life over 7 years, enabled by the radiation-hardened spacecraft bus and avoidance of consumables like propellant. As new satellites launch, older ones that have exceeded design life will be retired to minimize risks of failure. This allows the constellation to maintain peak performance.
Imagery Products
ICEYE offers several standard analysis-ready data products generated from the SAR imagery:
- Spotlight mode – 0.5 m resolution, 10 x 10 km scene size
- Stripmap mode – 3 m resolution, 5 x 25 km scene size
- ScanSAR mode – 18 m resolution, 40 x 200 km scene size
The company also works with customers to tailor additional customized products meeting specialized needs.
ICEYE publicly releases some imagery through a free archive to showcase capabilities. While this archive provides valuable samples, it does not represent the full commercial catalog. Customers can license current and historical imagery through a web portal or API access.
Applications
The ICEYE constellation serves a range of earth observation applications across government and commercial sectors:
Maritime monitoring – Frequent SAR imaging detects ships globally, monitors ports/traffic, and enables tracking of individual vessels over time.
Disaster response – Cloud-penetrating imaging provides rapid damage assessment following floods, earthquakes, storms, and other natural disasters.
Infrastructure monitoring – Repeat passes reveal infrastructure changes and activity patterns at sites of interest.
Situational awareness – Defense and intelligence agencies exploit frequent imaging for enhanced monitoring and indicator detection.
Science & environment – Scientists exploit SAR data for ecosystem monitoring, change detection, and understanding geophysical phenomena.
As the constellation continues to grow, additional satellites and ground infrastructure aim to support near-real-time monitoring. This low latency data delivery will open new use cases like commodity trade analytics, supply chain tracking, illegal fishing prevention, and operational response to disasters or security threats.
Summary
ICEYE’s unique constellation of compact SAR satellites provides the global coverage, frequent revisit rate, and high resolution needed to revolutionize earth observation. The company continues working to expand its constellation coverage and accessibility. Customers across the public and private sector already utilize ICEYE data for critical monitoring, response, and analytics use cases. The microsatellite platform pioneered by ICEYE helps ensure affordable and reliable access even to small budget operators across this new space economy.
Reference: EO Portal