SA-manufactured microsatellite heads to US for December launch

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October 2022 News

EOS SAT-1, the first imaging satellite to be built by Dragonfly Aerospace, will soon leave the 3000 m² Dragonfly Aerospace design and manufacturing facility in Stellenbosch, South Africa, as it heads to SpaceX’s launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA for pre-launch testing, ahead of the Transporter-6 mission scheduled to launch in December.

EOS SAT-1 will form the first of a seven-satellite constellation in low Earth orbit for the customer EOSDA (EOS Data Analytics). The remaining six satellites of the constellation will be deployed over the next three years. It will also be the world’s first agriculture-focused satellite constellation, providing the agriculture and forestry industry with high-quality data to support efficient and sustainable practices.

Images obtained from Dragonfly’s EOS SAT-1 will deliver valuable information for harvest monitoring, application mapping, seasonal planning, and assessments that analyse information such as soil moisture, yield prediction and biomass levels. This data will support growers in reducing carbon dioxide emissions and help them to develop sustainable agricultural methods without financial losses. Such information will have important environmental benefits for the planet and help prevent natural habitats from being diminished for crop growth.

Equipped with two DragonEye electro-optical imagers, EOS SAT-1 will provide 44 km swath panchromatic and multispectral imagery across 11 spectral bands at close to 1 m resolution, making it one of the most powerful satellites in low Earth orbit. Bryan Dean, CEO and co-founder of Dragonfly Aerospace, said, “This is a key moment for Dragonfly Aerospace and we are thrilled to be delivering EOS SAT-1 with a number of firsts: the first imaging satellite designed and built by Dragonfly, the first to be manufactured in South Africa since 2009, the first satellite of the EOS SAT constellation, and the first agri-focused constellation in space.

“This has been an important project for our whole team and has allowed us to demonstrate our capabilities, not just in producing high-performance electro-optical imagers, but in designing and manufacturing a full imaging satellite system. It’s an amazing feeling to see EOS SAT-1 leave our premises and take the next step in its journey to delivering crucial data that will have important environmental benefits for our planet. We look forward to supporting EOSDA with its mission to launch the next six satellites by 2025.”

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SA-manufactured microsatellite heads to US for December launch

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