Umbra Drops Lab and Prepares for Launch
The United States Patent Office has issued Umbra's patent for a next generation small satellite antenna which allows the company's satellites to capture imagery through clouds, day or night. The antenna combined with the company's 1200MHz bandwidth radar allows them to collect imagery below 25 centimeter impulse response (IPR).
Over the last few years, the company has focused on testing their antenna technology. The company went through multiple test phases, and the spaceflight payload has successfully passed deployment, shock, vibration and geometry testing in advance of their launch.
In addition to the satellite hardware, the company has been developing the infrastructure it will need to operate a constellation, including automated satellite tasking, cloud-based image processing and delivery, billing and customer service. Umbra's resilient cloud-based ground architecture will allow customers to download data directly from Amazon Web Services.
"We are particularly excited about our autonomous cloud-based tasking. The cloud native scheduler allows customers to directly access Umbra satellites without complex contracts or human interaction," said David Langan, Umbra's CEO
Umbra has been expanding its staff and will continue to grow throughout next year. Umbra's small team has been focused on building a cloud enabled commercial remote sensing system to offer data as a service rather than insights.
Umbra believes a smaller team and more capable satellites will allow them to offer lower cost, higher quality products which will help grow the commercial Earth Observation market. Umbra's Co-Founder, Gabe Dominocielo said: "We do not see our technology as 'disruptive.' We see it as a 'constructive' opportunity to grow the GEOINT and create value for our customers. Umbra considers firms offering analytics on SAR data as mission partners - we see their success as our success. We want our customers to win."
