UrtheCast Issues RFP to Prospective Industry Partners to Serve the U.S. Government with OptiSAR™ and UrtheDaily™

UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) (“UrtheCast” or the “Company”), today announces that it has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to U.S. companies interested in a long-term strategic partnership to serve the United States Government, further to the Company’s announcement on May 6, 2016. The RFP solicits prospective U.S. commercial partners with strong U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community (IC) footprints to help deliver data and services from UrtheCast’s planned 8-satellite UrtheDaily™ Constellation and 16-satellite OptiSAR™ Constellation to U.S. Government user agencies.

Using input received during and since the GEOINT 2016 symposium, UrtheCast has crafted the RFP to allow prospective commercial partners to propose their best creative ideas and strategies for effectively serving the imagery data, products, and services from the Company’s planned satellite constellations to end users and customers across the U.S. Government.

“We have been delighted by the feedback we’ve received to date and the excitement this process seems to be generating among candidate U.S. partners,” explained UrtheCast President and CEO, Wade Larson. “This industry is undergoing a period of significant change – driven by economic, technological, and regulatory forces.  We’re convinced that business model innovation will also be a critical element of this change. Our vision, quite simply, is to help create the partnerships and service delivery models that unlock the enormous potential of Earth observation data for the people who need it.  We believe our approach is aligned with the U.S. Government’s future procurement strategies and technology roadmaps to take advantage of the new and disruptive capabilities coming from the commercial sector.”   

The issuance of this RFP follows a succession of positive developments related to UrtheCast’s new technologies, including recently announced research and funding agreements with government agencies related to the OptiSAR program.

For those companies seeking more information regarding the RFP, please contact Mr. Phil Downen, UrtheCast V.P. of Government Programs.

Phil Downen
1.314.227.0370
pdownen@urthecast.com

About UrtheCast Corp.

UrtheCast Corp. is a Vancouver-based technology company with operations in the U.S. and Spain that serves the rapidly evolving geospatial and geoanalytics markets with a wide range of information-rich products and services. The Company currently operates four Earth Observation sensors in space, including two cameras aboard the International Space Station and two satellites, Deimos-1 and Deimos-2. Imagery and video data captured by these sensors is downlinked to ground stations across the planet and displayed on UrtheCast’s cloud-based web platform, or distributed directly to partners and customers.

In June 2015, UrtheCast announced its plans to build, launch and operate the world’s first fully-integrated, multi-spectral optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) commercial constellation of Earth Observation satellites, which is now known as OptiSAR™. The OptiSAR™ Constellation is expected to comprise 16 satellites (8 optical and 8 SAR) flying in two orbital planes, with each plane consisting of four satellite pairs, equally-spaced around the orbital plane.  Each pair of satellites will consist of a dual-mode, high-resolution optical satellite (video and pushbroom) and a dual-band high-resolution SAR satellite (X-band and L-band), flying in tandem. By employing two orbital planes, the OptiSAR™ Constellation will provide for maximum revisit rates in the mid-latitudes, while providing global coverage extending to the poles. OptiSAR™ will be deployed over multiple launches and is expected to begin operations in 2021. 

In March 2016, UrtheCast announced its UrtheDaily™ Constellation concept, consisting of eight additional electro-optical satellites equiphased in a sun synchronous orbit and designed to provide coverage of the Earth’s entire landmasses (excluding Antarctica) in six-band multi-spectral imagery every single day.  UrtheCast believes that, if realized, the 24 satellites of UrtheDaily™ and OptiSAR™ will represent an unprecedented capability for daily global collection, monitoring, change detection, and tipping-and-cueing. Common shares of UrtheCast trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange as ticker ‘UR’.

For more information, visit UrtheCast’s website at www.urthecast.com.