SATLANTIS triples satellite imaging capacity with Dotphoton’s Jetraw compression
- Industry
Kacia Rutkoŭskaja
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- 13 minutes read
ZUG, Switzerland – October 30, 2024 – In a groundbreaking collaboration, SATLANTIS has enhanced its GEISAT Precursor satellite by integrating Dotphoton’s Jetraw Core compression technology through a remote firmware upgrade completed in April 2024. Unlike many traditional compression methods, Jetraw Core preserves critical image fidelity and full real resolution, enabling more robust results with modern AI image processing pipelines. This advancement has tripled the satellite’s image acquisition capabilities and expanded its daily surface coverage to an impressive 175,000 km², significantly boosting performance and setting new benchmarks in Earth observation. The successful implementation not only demonstrates the maturity of Dotphoton’s innovative technology in real-world applications but also showcases how cutting-edge compression can enhance satellite efficiency while preserving data quality essential for advanced AI analysis, combined with SATLANTIS’ advanced optical technology, which delivers high-resolution imagery at a fraction of the mass and size this synergy significantly boosts satellite performance while contributing to more sustainable space-based EO solutions.
GEISAT Precursor – advanced environmental monitoring with high spatial resolution
In June2023, SATLANTIS launched its fourth mission, GEISAT Precursor(“GEISAT”), aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It offers extensive environmental monitoring, contributing to the understanding and mitigation of other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by processing and delivering high-quality visual imagery with very high spatial resolution for accurate data capture.
The satellite monitors infrastructure across various sectors, including oil and gas, biogas, landfills, and power infrastructure, targeting the main contributors to methane emissions: agriculture and fossil fuels, among others.
The GEISAT satellite features the iSIM-90 VNIR SWIR camera, providing high-resolution Earth observation capabilities. The payload includes two optical channels: one for the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectrum and another for the short-wave infrared (SWIR) spectrum, allowing it to acquire simultaneously in both spectral ranges. The camera offers a spatial resolution of 2 meters in the visible and near-infrared bands and 5 meters in the short-wave infrared, while 13 meters are provided for the methane data products, doubling the resolution of similar satellites.
In 2023, GEISAT Precursor was chosen to join the Copernicus Programme, the Earth observation component of the European Union. The programme is managed by the European Commission and implemented in partnership with the European Space Agency, the member states, and other European Agencies and research centres. GEISAT Precursor was selected as Emerging CCMCategory 1 for the Atmospheric Composition domain, supporting global efforts to monitor and analyse the Earth’s atmosphere.
Jetraw Core: advanced compression preserving critical image details for AI applications
Jetraw Core is an image and video compressor engineered to meet the needs of mission-critical AI-powered applications. Unlike other compressors labelled as”visually lossless” — which often remove image information not noticeable to the human eye but crucial for machine analysis— Jetraw preserves all fine details, including those hidden within image noise. While the compressed images remain perfectly clear and detailed to the human eye, modern AI algorithms can leverage the retained subtle information to enhance system performance beyond human visual capabilities.
Thanks to the support of the European Space Agency (ESA), Jetraw Core has been implemented as a low-power, low-latency, high-throughput hardware design with the amenities needed to be deployed in space applications, supporting most sensor types, panchromatic, bayer, multispectral and hyperspectral.
Jetraw is a solution that works with extreme performance in both hardware and software and optimises the image data path at several points: from camera to memory, from satellite to ground, to cloud storage and GPU for efficient training of neural networks.
In SATLANTIS’s unique processing workflow, super-resolution is a key component. Unlike ‘visually lossless’ compression technologies, Jetraw Core doesn’t introduce artefacts, bias or filtering, making it perfectly suited for this application, where it achieves a typical compression ratio of 6:1, a significantly better number than alternatives.
The Results
More data, cheaper, faster — 3 to 4x – Using Jetraw Core, SATLANTIS boosted data throughput, achieving a 300% to 400%increase in image acquisition. This enhancement allows SATLANTIS to acquire a significantly larger number of images, from which they can select the highest-quality ones, improving the overall dataset quality. The reduced image size also lowers bandwidth requirements, enabling faster and more cost-effective downlinks. This flexibility allows SATLANTIS to optimise bandwidth and throughput for mission success. As a result, they can now download 55,000 frames daily, up from 15,000.
Increased daily coverage — 3.5x – GEISAT has significantly expanded its coverage, increasing from 54,000 km² per day—about the size of a small country like Switzerland—to 175,000 km² per day, comparable to adding England. To further illustrate this growth, the coverage area has expanded from approximately 7.5 million football pitches to 24.5million. Such coverage expansion greatly enhances its monitoring capabilities.
Increased on-board storage & safety margin – JetrawCore has significantly boosted GEISAT’s storage capabilities, allowing it to store imagery covering up to 500,000 km² (a large country like Spain). This maximises the satellite’s ability to capture and retain more data, preventing data losses when the downlink is not sufficient to offload the entire data and allowing SATLANTIS to download the best and most relevant images from a large pool of available data.
Lower km² carbon footprint ~ 3x – SATLANTISnow emits 3x less CO2 per square kilometer of satellite imagery, a significantupgrade that enhances the sustainability of its operations with respect to theCO2 budget of its initially planned emissions. This improvement aligns with thebroader goal of delivering satellite data on our planet and its environment ina more sustainable manner, benefiting all users.
Fast, no-compromise benefits – GEISAT’sability to be updated in orbit allowed the fast deployment of Jetraw Core,providing all-round benefits in performance, coverage, costs, and CO2emissions.
Leadership from Dotphoton and SATLANTIS highlight the transformative impact of Jetraw Technology on Earth Observation
Integrating Jetraw Core compression technology into SATLANTIS’ GEISAT mission marks a significant advancement for the space industry. By optimising satellite operational efficiency and enhancing the quality of data transmitted to Earth, this collaboration sets new benchmarks in Earth observation.
José Achache, chairman of Dotphoton and former architect of the CopernicusProgramme, ESA’s Earth Observation programme, shared:
“The demand for higher spatial and spectral resolution in Earth observation results in overwhelming and costly data volumes. We’re tackling this by incorporating Jetraw Core raw image compression into next-generation satellites, ensuring uncompromised image quality. Dotphoton’s technology enhances data quality for AI analysis, improves efficiency, and promotes a more sustainable approach to space imagery. We’re proud to advance Earth observation through this collaboration with a forward-thinking company like SATLANTIS.”
Aitor Conde, Chief Technology Officer at SATLANTIS, comments:
“We continuously push the boundaries of innovation in Earth observation, and integrating Jetraw’s advanced compression technology into our GEISAT innovative mission is another example of this commitment. By leveraging Jetraw, we not only maximize the efficiency of our satellites but also deliver more high-resolution data to our clients and operators without compromising the image quality. This collaboration strengthens our ability to set new industry standards, ensuring that SATLANTIS remains at the forefront of sustainable, next-generation space imagery, empowering the future of Earth monitoring.”
About SATLANTIS
SATLANTIS, with its companies based in Florida (SATLANTISLLC), Spain (SATLANTIS Microsats), the UK (Supersharp) and France (Bayonne), is the leading Space technology company providing innovative solutions for EarthObservation and Universe Exploration built around their high and very high-resolution optical payloads for small satellites, the integrated StandardImager for Microsatellites, iSIM. SATLANTIS’ EO solutions [based on its core competency, Space Optics Technology] offer comprehensive and simultaneous coverage across PAN, RGB, NIR, and SWIR spectral ranges, plus TIR capabilities, alongside video and polarimetry. This data blend ensures high terrestrial precision and (very) high resolution, plus A team of artificial intelligence(AI) experts. The company portfolio includes innovative features like simultaneous VNIR and SWIR spectral capture and agility to continuously acquire imagery of non-linear ground structures. Covering the entire value chain, SATLANTIS offers full satellite solutions to address challenges in various sectors: environment (detection of methane emissions), security (coastal, maritime and borders surveillance), energy infrastructures (monitoring of plants and pipelines), among others, via an offering encompassing hardware, software, and services, fully customizable to the users’ needs.
SATLANTIS’ technology has been successfully demonstrated in space through six missions, achieving a remarkable 100% success rate.
📧 Sarah Luise – luise@satlantis.com
About Dotphoton
Dotphoton is an industry leader in optimising the performance and costs of advanced workflows in machine vision and AI, where raw images are required. It is known for its Jetraw compression algorithm, which was designed from the ground up to achieve high performance with no artefacts. It is often used in mission-critical environments where the robustness of cutting-edge AI systems is essential. Serving the automotive, space, and life sciences industries, Dotphoton’s solutions help organisations scale large volumes of high-quality image data by accelerating data transfers, improving storage efficiency, reducing costs, and enhancing the reliability of image-based ML models.
- Jetraw Core: An on-device solution for camera and instrument manufacturers, optimising image performance and user experience without compromising quality.
- Jetraw: A data management platform with unified access to the user’s cloud and local storage, streamlining data handling and reducing costs by up to 8x.
- Jetraw AI: A synthetic data generation solution that emulates specific sensor performance across various scenarios, determining model tolerance and improving AI reliability.
📧 Marina Hramkova – marina.hramkova@dotphoton.com
