UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) (“UrtheCast” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that its President and COO, Wade Larson, will present at World Satellite Business Week in Paris, France on Thursday September 11, 2014 at 11:45AM ET. Mr. Larson will be presenting on the advent of new solutions that are now possible with the delivery of video to the Earth Observation market. His presentation will also be posted to our website at http://investors.urthecast.com.
During his presentation, Mr. Larson will provide further details on the technical specifications of our planned second-generation sensors, which are scheduled to be installed on the NASA segment of the International Space Station (ISS) in late 2016, with delivery of data scheduled to commence in 2017. These second-generation instruments include a dual-mode optical camera, able to image in video or pushbroom modes, and a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensor, which is able to image simultaneously in both L and X bands.
These sensors will for the first time ever allow for the simultaneous capture, from the exact same imaging geometry, of both dual-band SAR imagery and high-resolution optical imagery or video of a given location of interest in the same pass. This unique fusion of data sets will enable the delivery of very information-rich image products, the first of their kind ever derived from space-borne sensors.
Second-generation sensor highlights:
The UrtheCast dual-band SAR will be the first sensor of its kind in space, being capable of imaging simultaneously in both X and L bands. The SAR sensor will have numerous imaging modes, which include a spot light mode in X-band to achieve high-resolution and a ScanSAR mode in L-band to achieve a wide swath.
The X-band sensor will have the following nominal capability: It will operate using a single polarity and will have a resolution of 1.5 m x 2.5 m and a swath width of 5 km. In spotlight mode, it will have a resolution of 1.5 m x 1 m.
The L-band sensor will have the following nominal capability: It will have a resolution of 5 m x 5 m using single polarity and 10 m x 10 m using quad-polarity (HH, HV, VH & VV) and a swath width of 12 km. In ScanSAR mode, it will have a swath of 100 km.
The SAR sensor will be able to image in any weather conditions and penetrate cloud cover.
The optical camera will have two imaging modes, a pushbroom mode for panchromatic and multi-spectral imaging with science-quality dynamic range and a video mode using a CMOS area array detector.
In the pushbroom mode, the optical camera will generate pan-sharpened multi-spectral imagery that will have a GSD of 0.5 m (after ground processing) with at least 4 multi-spectral bands.
In the video mode, the optical camera will provide full color, 20-Megapixel imagery at 30 frames-per-second with a 0.64 meter native GSD.
Applications:
The two planned sensors will support a wide range of applications, including the creation of 3D surface models, change detection, biomass measurement, urban planning, disaster response, and pollution monitoring — among many others.
About UrtheCast Corp.
UrtheCast Corp. is a Vancouver-based technology company that is developing the world’s first Ultra HD video feed of Earth, streamed from space in full color. Working with renowned aerospace partners from across the globe, UrtheCast has built, launched, installed, and will soon operate two cameras on the ISS. Video and still image data captured by the cameras will be downlinked to ground stations across the planet and displayed on the UrtheCast web platform, or distributed directly to partners and customers. UrtheCast’s cameras will provide Ultra HD video and still imagery of Earth that will allow for monitoring of the environment, humanitarian relief, social events, agricultural land, etc. Common shares of UrtheCast trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange as ticker ‘UR’.
For more information visit our website at www.urthecast.com.
