Because a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words – The Next Era of Earth Intelligence
Wovenware completely got caught up in the excitement of the launch of Maxar Intelligence’s two WorldView Legion satellites. As in Maxar offices around the world, our staff gathered together in our San Juan headquarters to watch in real-time, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as it delivered the satellites into orbit. We joined in on the countdown to lift-off and cheered loudly when it soared into the atmosphere.
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Our team includes software engineers, project managers, data scientists and other professionals, but on May 2, we all wished we were astronauts.
Before becoming part of Maxar in 2022, the company was our customer for more than seven years, and we worked together to create computer vision solutions that would provide deeper insights into the geospatial intelligence Maxar’s satellite imagery offered. Yet today, we couldn’t be prouder of the expertise, innovation and excellence of Maxar Intelligence and Maxar Space Systems, which raised the bar on the quality and speed of satellite imagery available today. It redefines what’s possible, enabling significantly more accurate, comprehensive and timely pattern-of-life and human geography analysis.
Maxar’s successful history in space technology guided the creation of its next-generation WorldView Legion satellites. From defense and intelligence to living maps for navigation, WorldView Legion’s 30 cm-class resolution will support valuable missions and provide coverage throughout the day and night to enable consistent and frequent monitoring of critical areas of interest and enable a new era of geospatial insights. But as Maxar says, this launch is just the beginning.
“At Wovenware, we understand the magnitude of what WorldView Legion satellite imagery will mean for more accurate and precise insights. We’re ready to work with our Maxar colleagues across the world to deliver the computer vision, deep learning and machine learning solutions, and software engineering skills to help customers uncover patterns and trends and derive meaningful insights from images.”
Carlos Melendez,
VP of Operations at Wovenware
With the geospatial insights that Maxar’s constellation of satellites bring, consider some of the ways that specific sectors can benefit from satellite imagery:
Consumer mapping: Satellite imagery fuels most large-scale mapping platforms, such as cell phone GPS systems, and when combined with AI and machine learning (AI/ML) capabilities location data can be integrated into business intelligence to help ride-share drivers, for example, take the most efficient route to their destinations, avoid congested highways and navigate any terrain – when urban or in remote locations. For consumers using a map on their cell phone to find the nearest coffee shop or gas station, are most likely using a map created with satellite imagery collected by Maxar’s satellites.
Environmental initiatives: Satellite imagery is used for many environmental and conservation uses. It’s used to track the spread of deforestation, monitor migration patterns of whales in the ocean or detect the effects of climate change on wildlife. It also can help agriculture-based organizations ensure more plentiful crops with weather and geospatial data to detect variability in soil and crop conditions.
Energy tracking: Insights from satellite imagery can be used to better manage smart grids, or to find the best location for a wind farm. It also can help to monitor infrastructure on a regular basis, by watching changes or defects in power lines, substations and transformers and planning repairs accordingly. Computer vision trained on satellite imagery also can predict energy consumption by tracking how close rooftops are to one another in a busy city. In one Maxar initiative, satellite imagery was used to map Methane emissions, since reducing them can reduce the effects of greenhouse gasses on the environment.
Civil Defense: Accurate satellite imagery is used to assist when natural disasters hit or in times of crisis for specific communities or regions. It provides visibility into changing conditions so that first responders can react accordingly. It also provides critical information to news agencies to share with the public. Maxar’s Open Data Program enables greater access to data for front-line responders by providing before and after satellite imagery in times of disaster.
These are just a few examples of how the insights gained from satellite imagery can provide a whole new level of awareness in a variety of commercial and government markets to protect and improve the planet and the lives of the people on it.
Here at Wovenware, we’re welcoming this next-generation of geospatial insights with open arms, since it provides a treasure trove of the data needed to build effective AI solutions that automate the task of forecasting and predicting the future and making decisions in the here and now. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the next generation of satellite imagery is priceless.
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