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ICEYE

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ICEYE Ltd.
Native name
ICEYE Oy
Company typeLimited company (osakeyhtiö)
IndustrySatellite imagery
Founded2014
FoundersRafał Modrzewski
Pekka Laurila
HeadquartersEspoo, Finland
Irvine, CA, USA
Warsaw, Poland
Bordon, UK
Area served
Worldwide
Websitewww.iceye.com

ICEYE Ltd. (natively ICEYE Oy)[1] is a Finnish microsatellite manufacturer and operator.[2][3] ICEYE was founded in 2014 and is now the world's largest synthetic aperture imaging radar constellation.[4]

It is originally a spin-off of Aalto University's University Radio Technology Department, and is based in Espoo[5] and has offices globally (Finland, Poland, Spain, the UK, and the US) and over 700 employees globally.[6]

In September 2024 the company reported 2023 revenues of $100M and expanded its funding to $438M.[7]

The CEO and co-founder of ICEYE is Rafał Modrzewski.[3][2]

History

[edit]

In 2015, ICEYE demonstrated that synthetic-aperture radar could be used to monitor hazardous ice features such as pack ice.[8]

In 2019, the founders of ICEYE and Aalto staff involved were awarded the Finnish Engineering Award by the Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland TEK[9][10] The achievement was called "a breakthrough in Finnish space technology" in the award citation.[11]

ICEYE SAR image of Rotterdam harbour

In October 2019, ICEYE started offering commercial access to its 1-metre resolution SAR-imagery, and operated 3 SAR satellites.[12]

In December 2020, ICEYE sold two satellites (X18, X19 or X20) to the Brazilian Air Force, these satellites were launched in May 2022 on SpaceX's Transporter-5 mission.[13][14] The Brazilians named these satellites Carcará 1 and Carcará 2.[15]

In August 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, ICEYE signed a contract with the Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation that would give the Armed Forces of Ukraine access to one of its satellites.[16][17]

The company has launched a total of 38 satellites as of August 2024.[18]

Business

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The company launched as an earth observation data provider with its own satellite constellation[6] that has the ability to revisit locations on earth in hours and can do imaging in all weather conditions.[19] With top use cases including "border monitoring, site activity monitoring, port monitoring, maritime domain, deforestation monitoring, sea ice and oil spills".[19]

From 2022, in addition to its own constellation data, the company offered entire satellite launches to customers, saying "Governments and large multinational corporations are able to purchase their own radar imaging satellites from ICEYE and operate them independently, or arrange ICEYE to manage the spacecraft exclusively on their behalf".[20]

It has bespoke packaged solutions for Insurance[21] and Government[22] domains to assist in flood and wildfire insights and improve disaster response.

Funding and financial performance

[edit]

Upon demonstrating the solution for monitoring pack ice in 2015, ICEYE received a €2,4M grant from the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme for SMEs with the goal "to integrate, pilot test and demonstrate the ICEYE SAR system in its final form as a microsatellite in order to attract private investment for launching."[23]

In August 2017, ICEYE raised $13 million in capital, including from the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovations.[3]

On May 24, 2018, ICEYE raised $34M in Series B led by return investor True Ventures and supported by Draper Network VC funds and others. The company said it will use the capital to "expand its custom analytics services for its growing customer base, further develop its SAR satellite technology, as well as fund additional launches of ICEYE SAR satellites".[24]

In September 2020, ICEYE raised $87M in Series C led by return investor True Ventures, with a significant additional investment by OTB Ventures. With the funding the company seeks to establish manufacturing in the US and build on existing capabilities (such as 0.25 meter resolution data and SAR video and demonstrated record time data deliveries of 5 minutes).[25]

On February 3, 2022, ICEYE raised $136M to increase the size of the constellation and strengthen "the growth of ICEYE's Natural Catastrophe (NatCat) Insights and Solutions offering".[26]

On 17 April 2024, ICEYE announced that it had closed an oversubscribed $93 million growth funding round. The round was led by Finnish sovereign wealth fund Solidium Oy and saw participation from Move Capital Fund I, Blackwells Capital, Christo Georgiev, and existing investors.[27]

The total funding raised is at $438M as of April 17, 2024.[7]

The company reports annual revenues of $100M for FY 2023.[7]

Satellites

[edit]

On 12 January 2018, a PSLV-XL rocket on PSLV-C40 mission carried ICEYE-X1 (also known as ICEYE POC1, COSPAR 2018-004D; POC stands for "Proof Of Concept") into orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.[3] ICEYE-X1, at 70 kg, was the first satellite under 100 kg to carry a synthetic-aperture radar, and was the first Finnish commercial satellite.[3][2][28]

The second satellite, ICEYE-X2 (ICEYE POC2, COSPAR 2018-099AU) was launched into orbit on 3 December 2018, at 18:34 UTC by a SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket. The launch took place from the Vandenberg, SLC-4E.[29]

The third ICEYE X payload was launched on 5 May 2019 on an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, in New Zealand. The payload, called ICEYE-X3, was integrated into the Harbinger satellite (the satellite is also known as ICEYE X3, ICEYE POC3, COSPAR 2019-026E), a proof-of-concept prototype for a York Space Systems' S-class satellite bus. The Harbinger was launched on its demonstration mission, and the payloads integrated into the satellite included the ICEYE X3, BridgeSat's optical communications payload and Enpulsion of Austria's Field Emission Electric Propulsion system. The launch was conducted as the STP-27RD mission of the Space Test Program (STP) of the United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command, who sponsored the launch. The ICEYE-X3 radar payload had communications issues related to bus communications. These were reportedly solved.[30]

The fourth and fifth satellite, ICEYE-X4 (COSPAR 2019-038D) and ICEYE-X5 (COSPAR 2019-038C) were launched on 5 July 2019 by a Soyuz-2-1b rocket from Vostochny Cosmodrome Site 1S.[15]

The next launch occurred on September 28, 2020, with Soyuz-2-1v from Plesetsk. This put ICEYE-X6 and ICEYE-X7 satellites into orbit.[31] On 24 January 2021, three new satellites (ICEYE-X8, ICEYE-X9 and ICEYE-X10) were launched from Cape Canaveral SLC40 as part of record setting Falcon 9 Flight 106 (i.e. Transporter-1 mission).[32][33] One of these, the ICEYE-X10, is actually a US-built version of the ICEYE satellites developed by R2 Space for the US government and has been renamed XR-1.[34]

Three ICEYE SAR satellites on the SpaceX launch vehicle

The cooperation between SpaceX and ICEYE continued with 6 more satellites launched with Falcon 9 Block 5 rockets, 4 on 30 June 2021 as part of the Transporter-2 mission (ICEYE-X11, ICEYE-X12, ICEYE-X13 and ICEYE-X15)[35] and 2 on 13 January 2022 as part of the Transporter-3 mission (ICEYE-X14 and ICEYE-X16).[36] Another 5 have been launched on 25 May 2022 as part of Transporter-5 (ICEYE-X17, X18, X19, X20 and X24)[37] and 3 on 3 January 2023 as part of Transporter-6 (ICEYE-X21, X22 and X27).[38] Unfortunately, out of those last three satellites only two are currently in orbit while ICEYE X22 failed to separate from the rocket upper stage representing the first loss of a satellite for ICEYE.[39]

Four more satellites (ICEYE-X23, X25, X26 and X30) have been launched on 12 June 2023 on SpaceX's Transporter-8 mission[40] and another four (ICEYE-X31, X32, X34 and X35) on 11 November 2023 on SpaceX's Transporter-9 mission.[41]

Three more satellites were launched on March 4, 2024. That brings the total number of ICEYE satellites launched to 34.[4]

Another four satellites were launched on August 16, 2024, which brought the launched satellite total to 38.[42][18]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "ICEYE Oy". Kauppalehti (in Finnish). Retrieved 21 September 2023.
  2. ^ a b c Amos, Jonathan (12 January 2018). "Finnish start-up ICEYE's radical space radar solution". BBC News. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Space startup ICEYE just launched Finland's first-ever commercial satellite into orbit". Business Insider Nordic. 12 January 2018. Archived from the original on 17 January 2018. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  4. ^ a b "ICEYE's SAR constellation strengthened with their latest launch – SatNews". news.satnews.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  5. ^ ICEYE (3 March 2016). "ICEYE: ARCTIC PASSION". Aker Arctic. p. 2. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
  6. ^ a b "About us | Company | ICEYE". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  7. ^ a b c "ICEYE raises oversubscribed growth funding round to expand global SAR leadership". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  8. ^ Laurila, Pekka; Modrzewski, Rafal; Cheng, Tao; Campbell, Brad; Yanni, Victor Garas (2016). "Validation of ICEYE Small Satellite SAR Design for Ice Detection and Imaging". All Days. doi:10.4043/27447-MS.
  9. ^ "Space conquerors win the Finnish Engineering Award". aalto.fi. 3 June 2019.
  10. ^ "Suomalainen insinöörityöpalkinto avaruuden valloittajille". lehti.tek.fi. Archived from the original on 23 September 2020. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
  11. ^ Törmänen, Eeva. "Suomalainen insinöörityöpalkinto avaruustekniikalle: Kaikki alkoi, kun kesällä 2009 opiskelijoille piti saada tekemistä – "Siitä se lähti"". tekniikkatalous.fi.
  12. ^ "ICEYE's one-meter Spotlight becomes commercially available". spacenews.com. 16 October 2019.
  13. ^ Sale of Finnish microsatellite to Brazil raises criticism Yle. 2021.
  14. ^ Lançados dois satélites do Projeto Lessonia da Força Aérea Brasileira May 26, 2022
  15. ^ a b "ICEYE X4, X5". space.skyrocket.de.
  16. ^ "Ukraine gains enhanced access to Iceye imagery and data". SpaceNews. 18 August 2022. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
  17. ^ ICEYE Signs Contract to Provide Government of Ukraine with Access to Its SAR Satellite Constellation, ICEYE, August 18, 2022
  18. ^ a b "History | About us | ICEYE". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  19. ^ a b "SAR data | ICEYE". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  20. ^ "ICEYE Expands its Business to Offer Complete Satellite Missions". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  21. ^ "Insurance solutions | ICEYE". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  22. ^ "Government solutions | disaster response | ICEYE". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  23. ^ ICEYE. "ICEYE Granted 2.4M Euros from European Union's Horizon 2020 SME Instrument". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  24. ^ "$34M in Series B Financing and 9 Satellite Launches announced at ICEYE". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  25. ^ "USD 87M in Series C for ICEYE to Continue Conquering Boundaries in SAR". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  26. ^ "ICEYE Raises USD 136M in Series D Funding Round". www.iceye.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  27. ^ "Earth Observation Provider ICEYE Secures $93M in New Funding". European Spaceflight. 19 April 2024. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
  28. ^ "ICEYE X1". space.skyrocket.de.
  29. ^ "ICEYE X2". space.skyrocket.de.
  30. ^ "Harbinger (ICEYE X3)". space.skyrocket.de.
  31. ^ "Avaruusesineiden rekisteri / Register över rymdföremål / Registry of Space Objects (of Finland)" (PDF) (in Finnish, Swedish, and English). The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, tem.fi. 26 November 2020. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  32. ^ "Smallsat Rideshare Missions : Dedicated Missions - January 24, 2021: SpaceX Transporter-1 (143 satellites), SSO". elonx.net. 24 January 2021. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  33. ^ "ICEYE Establishes World's Top-Performing Persistent Monitoring Satellite Capabilities with Three New SAR Spacecraft Successfully Launched". iceye.com. 25 January 2021. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  34. ^ "XR 1, ..., 8 (ICEYE X10)". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  35. ^ Lentz, Danny (29 June 2021). "SpaceX successfully launches Transporter 2 mission with 88 satellites". NASASpaceFlight. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  36. ^ Clark, Stephen (13 January 2022). "SpaceX launches 105 customer satellites on third Transporter rideshare mission". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  37. ^ Clark, Stephen (25 May 2022). "Live coverage: SpaceX launches rideshare mission, lands another Falcon booster". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 25 May 2022.
  38. ^ Lentz, Danny (3 January 2023). "SpaceX rings in 2023 with Transporter-6 rideshare mission". NASASpaceFlight. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  39. ^ Jonathan McDowell [@planet4589] (17 April 2023). "Yes, not counting that because I've had it privately confirmed that it didn't separate" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  40. ^ Lentz, Danny (12 June 2023). "SpaceX Transporter-8 launches 72 payloads marking 200th booster landing". Retrieved 15 June 2023.
  41. ^ Lentz, Danny (11 November 2023). "SpaceX Transporter 9 rideshare features new OTV from Tom Mueller's Impulse Space". NASASpaceFlight. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
  42. ^ Felstead, Peter (19 August 2024). "ICEYE builds up its SAR constellation with four new satellites - European Security & Defence". euro-sd.com. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
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