Capella Space has partnered with SpaceNet to expand the latter’s existing geospatial open-source research to a new data type, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR).

The collaboration enables Capella to join the SpaceNet partnership, along with In-Q-Tel’s (IQT) CosmiQ Works, Maxar Technologies, Intel AI and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Access to SAR data will help to increase the use of high-quality data across a number of geospatial analytic applications.

SpaceNet general manager and IQT senior vice-president Ryan Lewis said: “SAR promises substantial value for a wide variety of geospatial applications because, unlike satellite imagery, it is not limited by weather or lighting conditions.

“Capella’s contribution of an open-source, high-resolution SAR data set is an important next step for SpaceNet, and we are excited to see how participants use this data for machine learning models in an upcoming challenge.”

In addition to having potential in applying machine learning capabilities to SAR data for a wide range of applications, the industry still faces significant barriers to adopt the new technology.

By collaborating with SpaceNet, Capella aims to overcome these obstacles by developing a new SAR user community.

Capella Space business development vice-president Andrew Ulmer said: “Traditionally, this type of high-resolution SAR data has only been used by governments for defence applications and has not been easy to access.

“By opening access to this type of data and lowering barriers to adoption, we aim to foster broad and rapid advances in commerce, conservation and well-being across many industries.”

The Capella User Community will widen the high-resolution SAR data adoption to solve a variety of global issues.

Data scientists and software engineers will now have access to Capella’s data and will be able to work more easily with SAR data.