Expanded Constellation Begins Operation for HawkEye360
HawkEye360's Cluster 4 and 5 satellites have begun operation. The expanded constellation has doubled the company's on orbit capacity to empower customers with actionable global insights.
"With all our improvements, HawkEye 360 has quadrupled daily RF data collection since the start of the year."
HawkEye 360 COO Rob Rainhart.
The expanded constellation can collect over a region of interest up to 16 times per day with an average revisit of 1.5 hours using enhanced payloads, additional ground stations, and optimized satellite management and data processing.
"Our engineering team continues to achieve major technical milestones, including commissioning the Cluster 5 satellites about 10 weeks after being launched, a new record," said HawkEye 360 COO Rob Rainhart. "With all our improvements, HawkEye 360 has quadrupled daily RF data collection since the start of the year. The richness and density of these data sets is making RF activity clearer, allowing us to deliver new dimensions of global knowledge to our government and allied government partners that is tactically relevant and beneficial for national security and humanitarian needs."
HawkEye Cluster 4 was successfully launched on April 1, while Cluster 5 was boosted into orbit May 25th. Both launches were aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets from Cape Canaveral.
The commissioning of both sets of three satellites means the constellation now has a dozen of the next gen satellites with enhanced payloads that began launching in 2021. The company has activated new ground stations in Chile, South Africa, and New Zealand to download the increasing amounts of data and significantly reduce the time required to deliver data to our customers.
HawkEye 360 will continue rapidly growing the constellation to address clients' increasing demands for RF Intelligence, aiming for a total of 60 satellites (20 clusters of three satellites). HawkEye 360's sixth cluster of satellites is slated to launch on Rocket Lab's inaugural Electron mission from Launch Complex 2 on Wallops Island, Virginia no earlier than December 2022.
HawkEye 360 operates a unique commercial satellite constellation to detect, characterize, and geolocate a broad range of RF signals. Value is extracted from this data through proprietary algorithms, fusing it with other sources to create analytical products that solve hard challenges, according to the company.
(Image provided with HawkEye 360 news release)