High-Resolution SAR Agreement Announced by NASA
NASA has awarded a sole source Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) to Capella Space Corporation of San Francisco to provide high-resolution SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) commercial Earth observation data products.
Under this agreement, the government will issue fixed-price BPA Calls for these products, at a not-to exceed value of $7 million per Call. The work will be performed at the contractor's facilities, and other locations as specified in individual Calls issued. The period of performance is for five years from the effective date of the agreement.
The contractor is responsible for the delivery of a comprehensive catalog of its high-resolution SAR (.5 meter to 1.2 meters) (≈1.6 feet to 4 feet) commercial Earth observation data products indicating at a minimum data sets, associated metadata and ancillary information; data cadence; data latency; area coverage; and data usage policy. Specifically, NASA is procuring, for detailed evaluation and assessment, small constellation satellite data products that might augment NASA-collected data.
High-Resolution SAR Agreement must Meet Specific Guidelines
To facilitate standard scientific collaborations, NASA requires compliance with a government-defined End User License Agreement to enable broad levels of dissemination and shareability of the commercial data with the U.S. government agencies and partners.
Last year, Capella Space unveiled plans for a new generation of high-resolution SAR satellites with what it calls Acadia technology that will further increase image quality by scaling power by more than 40%, in line with increased bandwidth. The combination of increased bandwidth and increased power will mean more detail in Capella’s imagery and more accurate detection of an even broader range of objects.
The Acadia spacecraft will be equipped with optical communications terminals (OCTs). Capella is the first commercial SAR company to demonstrate Optical Inter-Satellite Links (OISL), compatible with the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA)’s new National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA) and standards. High-speed links will enable Capella to drastically reduce latency from collect to downlink for critical decision-making on the ground.
(Source: NASA and Capella Space news releases. Images from file)