The Australian Office of National Intelligence Partners with Spire for first Supercomputing Satellite
The Australian National Intelligence Community has partnered with Spire Global to deploy a new experimental small satellite with advanced machine learning capabilities into space
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Spire Global, a leading data analytics provider with the world's largest earth observation constellation of satellites for advanced weather data, maritime analytics, and aircraft tracking, today announced its first dedicated LEMUR satellite, named Djara, developed for Australia’s Office of National Intelligence (ONI).
The close collaboration between Spire and ONI – together with the LEMUR satellite’s extensive spaceflight heritage – saw the rapid development of Djara from concept to orbital deployment. The Djara satellite is part of an Australian National Intelligence Community program to experiment with commercial satellite technologies, including the on-board application of advanced machine learning capabilities.
The mission focus of Djara is to conduct experiments with systems that enable the on-orbit analysis of data using commercial reprogrammable Field Programmable Gate Arrays and Machine Learning systems on a chip. It will utilize Spire Global’s existing commercial licenses, legal approvals and extensive ground station and cloud infrastructure to downlink, further process and analyse the data.
On October 5, Djara arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) in a Cygnus Capsule launched on a Northrop Grumman Antares Rocket as part of a resupply mission. Djara will be deployed by the ISS Astronauts from a NanoRacks satellite dispenser in early November 2020.
While Djara is not an operational capability, it will provide the Australian National Intelligence Community the ability to explore the potential applications of commercially available small satellite systems.
“The partnership with ONI has been exceptional throughout the whole program. We were particularly impressed with the speed of operation and keen sense of innovation that the ONI team consistently demonstrated and we are excited that they have chosen us to be their partner”, said Peter Platzer, CEO Spire Global.
Spire has become an industry-standard in the commercial small, smart satellite sector. The company has launched several new strategic partnerships this year, including deals with NASA, ESA, Amazon, and key global players in the weather, maritime, and aviation sectors.
Djara (pronounced Jar-ra) was named as a homage to the Ngunnawal (pronounced nun-ar-wol) indigenous Australian people who inhabit the Ngunnawal nation in which the Australian capital Canberra (itself a derivative of the Ngunnawal word for 'meeting place' – kamberri) is located. Djara is a Ngunnawal word for 'stars'.
About Spire Global Inc.
Spire Global Inc. is a space to cloud analytics company that utilizes proprietary satellite data and algorithms to provide the most advanced maritime, aviation, and weather tracking in the world. Spire’s data analytics is backed by a wholly owned and developed constellation of nanosatellites, global ground station network, and 24/7 operations that provide near real-time global coverage of every point on Earth. To learn more, visit: www.spire.com
Media Contact:
James A. Pearson
Spire Global Inc.
james.pearson@spire.global
646-522-4297
Released October 14, 2020