SAN FRANCISCO – After attracting CubeSat customers, Belgium-based Simera Sense is developing high-resolution optical payloads for larger satellites.
To date, Simera Sense customers have sent more than 50 xScape100 and xScape200 cameras into orbit. Most have flown on CubeSats ranging in size from 6U to 16U.
For larger satellites, Simera Sense is developing standardized optical payloads to provide imagery with ground sampling distances of less than one meter. First delivery of the new payload is expected in 2028.
“The demand for imagery less than one meter is increasing,” said Theis Cronje, chief commercial officer at Simra Sense. space news In Smallsat Symposium. “People want to see more detail at the ground level.”
hyperspectral data
At the Smallsat Symposium, Simera Sense also announced an MoU with Florida-based sidus space. Sidus Space will integrate its FeatherEdge hardware and Cielo AI software with the Simera Sense hyperspectral payload.
Through software, customers of Simera Sense hyperspectral instruments can configure the payload to collect data in 32 of the 400 possible bands.
“You can change it right away,” Cronje said.
For example, as the satellite travels over Africa, a customer can configure the detector to monitor desert before reconfiguring it for agricultural monitoring. If the satellite next travels over Ukraine in orbit, it will need to change spectral bands again.
“We’re working with edge-computing companies like Sidus Space to autonomously reconfigure cameras for different applications and different needs or different targets on the ground,” Cronje said. “The camera itself must be able to decide which spectral band is needed to analyze the scene on the ground.”
standardized product
Simera Sense, founded in 2018, provides standardized, off-the-shelf products.
“We can make a little bit of modification to the multispectral, hyperspectral and video options,” Cronje said. “But it’s all software changes. We update the firmware and the software.”
In 2014, Simera Sense raised $15 million to expand payload production to meet growing demand from customers including AAC Clyde Space, Loft Orbital, OHB Systems, Open Cosmos, and Prometheus Earth Intelligence. The company currently manufactures about 12 cameras per month in South Africa “and we have a huge backlog,” Cronje said.
