UrtheCast bought two Deimos satellites in 2015 and started developing a data and analytics business thereafter.
NASA funded the Phobos Regolith Ion Sample Mission (PRISM), a 12-unit cubesat equipped with an instrument to study particles ejected from the surfaces of Phobos and Deimos in response to solar wind and micrometeorite bombardment.
UrtheCast acquired the Deimos Imaging Earth-observation business from Spain’s Elecnor.
DLR and JAXA will collaborate on the Martian Moon Exploration mission (MMX), a medium-class mission set for launch in 2024 to explore Phobos and Deimos.
The Federal Communications Commission awarded Microsoft an experimental license in early September 2020 to download data from Urthecast’s Deimos-2 Earth observation satellite.
UrtheCast provides satellite imagery through the Deimos-1 and Deimos-2 satellites and has partnerships with other operators to tap into another 20 satellites.
SSTL is a supplier of satellite platforms and services for LEO missions and its previous missions include Beijing-1, the five-satellite RapidEye constellation, Deimos-1, exactView-1, KazEOSAT-2, and the three-satellite TripleSat constellation.