Data Provider Spotlight: Airbus Defence and Space - Intelligence

Source: Airbus Defence and Space - Satellite image – Pleiades Neo – Sydney Australia

Airbus Defence and Space - Intelligence has been a Data Provider in the GRAVITY Challenge since the program launched in 2019.

Recently, we sat down with some of the team to ask a few questions about what the Airbus Defence and Space- Intelligence team does, why they’re involved in the GRAVITY Challenge and the next BIG THING in their pipeline. We’re over the moon to be able to highlight the value they bring as a data provider across our Challenges.

What is Airbus Defence and Space - Intelligence and what do you do?

The Intelligence business of Airbus Defence and Space is a world-leading expert in geo-information services and defence solutions. For over 30 years it has been our mission to deliver insightful and actionable intelligence so that our customer can take informed decisions and respond to their challenges with greater speed, confidence, and certainty.

With proprietary access to Pléiades Neo, Pléiades, SPOT, Vision-1 and DMC Constellation optical satellite data as well as the Radar Constellation (consisting of TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X and PAZ), our extensive portfolio spans the entire geo-information value chain and is unrivalled in the marketplace. Derived from our first-class imagery, we process a comprehensive portfolio of geospatial datasets such as high-quality elevation models, layers and grids that support diverse applications across markets ranging from defence and security across maritime and agriculture to civil engineering and oil, gas and mining. Thus, we help decision makers to increase security, optimise mission planning, boost operational performance, improve management of resources and protect our environment.

Why is Airbus Defence and Space - Intelligence involved with the Gravity Challenge?

As an industrial player, we are pleased to support the efforts of Deloitte with our input and contribution to promote the creation and development of an entrepreneurial eco-system in the field of Earth observation. Our participation in the Gravity Challenge is of significant benefit to the contributing developers who can benefit from Airbus Defence and Space experience in standard and advanced products and services derived from satellite data.

The Intelligence business of Airbus Defence and Space has solid experience in challenge participation with more than 40 hackathon experiences during the last 4 years. We strongly believe that this kind of initiative brings a fresh perspective to business challenges and serves as proving grounds for new ideas at low cost. It helps us to identify and attract fresh minds – in particular entrepreneurs and start-ups - which can result in new specialists, reaching out to a new target audience, potential customers and partners. Airbus Defence and space believes that this Gravity Challenge brings a significant added value in the promotion of new Earth observation-based applications and paves the way for the creation of new start-ups providing job opportunities and professional growth for students and researchers.

What’s the next big thing in the pipeline for Airbus Defence and Space - Intelligence?

With the launch of our new optical 30cm-resolution constellation Pléiades Neo constellation, we will reshape the Earth Observation-based services. Pléiades Neo is our most advanced optical constellation, with four identical 30cm resolution satellites delivering imagery with best-in-class geolocation accuracy, twice-a-day revisit and with ultimate reactivity. Entirely funded, manufactured, owned and operated by Airbus, Pléiades Neo is a breakthrough in the Earth Observation domain.

Thanks to these state-of-the-art satellites, we optimise each step of the acquisition and delivery cycle in order to offer you top-level Earth Observation services now and going forward into decades to come. We are also preparing the future with further extensions of our constellation through the CO3D, the Zephyr and the TerraSAR-X Neo programmes as well as our HawkEye 360 partnership to deliver a new class of radio frequency (RF) data and analytics.

Our work also focuses on the digital transformation of our products and services we well as developing analytics capabilities, advanced processing products, multi-intelligence fusion and correlation as well as Artificial Intelligence. We are working in close partnerships with start-ups, universities, SMEs and other partners across our markets to develop the solutions of the future.

To find out more about Airbus Defence and Space – Intelligence, visit www.intelligence-airbus.com and or follow them on LinkedIn.