WASHINGTON - In a move that sounds like the plot of a low-budget sci-fi film but is actually just Tuesday in the space industry, HEO, an Australian company that uses Earth observation satellites to take pictures of other spacecraft, has signed a deal with Planet to borrow their satellites for a bit of celestial paparazzi work.
The two companies announced a partnership on Aug. 17, under which HEO will be able to use Planet's SkySat high-resolution satellites for what is known as non-Earth imaging (NEI) - because 'spying on other satellites' sounds too cloak-and-dagger, apparently. Financial terms were not disclosed, which is corporate-speak for 'we're not telling you, and you can't make us.'
Initially, the SkySat NEI imagery will be available only to HEO's U.S. government customers. Because nothing says 'commercial space innovation' like 'exclusively for spy agencies.' Jon Powers, general manager of Planet Federal, spun it as a response to 'increasing calls for the need to detect and characterize potentially nefarious activity in space, from space.' Translation: someone's worried about space junk with bad intentions, and they want a better view.
With SkySat in the mix, HEO now has access to more than 50 sensors in orbit, mostly from other Earth observation companies. Will Crowe, HEO's CEO, explained the company's philosophy: 'We don't need huge, expensive satellites to do the non-Earth imaging mission... You just need to have cameras in the right place at the right time.' So, it's like a cosmic game of Where's Waldo, but with multimillion-dollar hardware.
The approach requires 'a diversity of sensors and a diversity of orbits,' Crowe said, which increases the odds of having a camera in the right spot to snap a pic of an object of interest. The U.S. government restriction is due to licensing issues, but Crowe doesn't seem too fussed: about 90% of HEO's business comes from government customers anyway. 'We're focused on the government customer because they know what this is, they know why it's important,' he said, adding that commercial interest is growing but 'still early days on the adoption curve.'
HEO has already put NEI to use, like identifying satellites deployed in clusters on rideshare launches and studying a malfunctioning SpaceX Starlink satellite that was tumbling but not broken. Because apparently, even in space, things fall apart - but sometimes they just spin.
HEO also acquired its first satellite, Continuum-1, earlier this year. Built by Satellogic and launched three years ago as NewSat-34, it's been 'doing amazing things,' Crowe said. It allows HEO to move from tasking (taking images on demand) to regular monitoring, turning the company into 'a bit more of a diagnostic tool' that can compare before-and-after images of space incidents. Think of it as a wellness check for satellites.
Recently, HEO announced plans to use Continuum-1 for rendezvous and proximity operations, maneuvering it within tens of kilometers of a defunct rocket body in low Earth orbit. If successful, it would show how such maneuvers could enable more continuous imagery. Crowe marveled at repurposing a spacecraft for tasks it wasn't intended for: 'It's really been amazing to use a spacecraft that wasn't intended for that purpose, but then repurpose it to do some pretty amazing stuff.' That's the space industry's version of turning a toaster into a doorstop - except the toaster cost millions and orbits Earth.
'That's where we've got to go as an industry: really think about the needs of the customer and make sure that we're delivering stuff that can fix whatever issues they might have,' Crowe said. Or, as the intelligence community might put it, 'We need to know stuff, and we need to know it now.'