The first of seven agriculture-focused satellites being manufactured in South Africa will be launched into orbit in December.

According to Business Insider, the EOS SAT-1, manufactured by Stellenbosch-based Dragonfly Aerospace, will be tested before being launched aboard Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

The EOS SAT-1 and six other satellites are being deployed into low-Earth orbit over the next three years for EOS Data Analytics, a cloud-based platform that specialises in geospatial data and analysing satellite imagery. The satellites will provide the agriculture and forestry industry with data for harvest monitoring, application mapping, seasonal planning and assessments, also assisting in soil moisture analyses, and biomass level projections.

The satellite, which is equipped with two DragonEye electro-optical imagers, can generate 44km swath panchromatic and multispectral imagery at close to 1m resolution.

25 October 2022
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