Umbra achieves first light in under 48 hours

Santa Barbara, Calif. – April 18, 2023 – Umbra, an industry leader in advanced space radar technology, announced today that its sixth satellite, Umbra-06, has achieved first light in less than 48 hours after launch.  

Umbra-06, which launched on the SpaceX Transporter-7 mission late in the evening of April 14th, builds on the existing constellation of five satellites, which delivers the highest resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery commercially available from orbit. Umbra now has six satellites in orbit and expects to deploy two more by the end of 2023. 

Customers in Umbra’s early-access program are tasking the satellites via Canopy, Umbra’s direct tasking platform. Examples of Umbra’s industry-leading 25cm imagery and other data products can be found via Umbra’s Open Data Program, which launched on March 15, 2023.  The Open Data Program continuously monitors diverse locations around the world, and is updated multiple times per week. The Open Data Program enables users to analyze time-series data to detect changes in each location, from monitoring floating lid oil inventory to deforestation, container ports and more.  

Umbra satellites are equipped with a powerful SAR payload, capable of seeing both day and night and through all weather conditions. The satellites enjoy an uncommonly large field of regard, which enables them to collect an unprecedented volume of images over densely clustered targets in high-demand areas.  

“We’re thrilled by our satellites’ performance because of what it means for our commercial and government customers. This game-changing capability enables us to supply the market with copious amounts of high-resolution imagery this year,” said David Langan, Umbra’s co-founder and chief executive officer.

“For the first time ever, a huge sector of the market that has historically been locked out will be able to monitor any place on Earth at any time, all enabled by our constellation’s unit economics,” said Gabe Dominocielo, Umbra’s co-founder and president. 

Umbra is supporting a growing number of inspiring and innovative organizations monitoring the Earth in unprecedented fidelity. Umbra’s data can identify and monitor surface-level changes globally, and be used for a variety of efforts including remote wildlife habitat protection, pollution and plastic waste tracking, oil spill detection, military intelligence gathering, live flooding estimation during storms and more.