Deimos-1 Data of the Contiguous United States, Cloud-Free, Every Month, Now Flowing to the UrthePlatform
VANCOUVER, May 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) ("UrtheCast" or the "Company") today announces that, for the first time, newly-collected imagery from its Deimos-1 satellite is flowing to its online platform, known as the UrthePlatform, shortly after acquisition. UrtheCast anticipates that it will be able to provide this broad-area-coverage Deimos-1 data cloud-free for the entire contiguous United States, each and every month, throughout the 2016 agricultural growing season. This data will be available for extraction, on demand, from the UrthePlatform Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in GeoTIFF format at affordable price points. Deimos-1 is a clear market leader in offering such high coverage, at such scale, for application areas such as precision agriculture, forest resource management and large-scale environmental monitoring.
"This is a significant milestone for the company," explains Wade Larson, President and CEO of UrtheCast. "This represents a step function in terms of our ability to serve the rapidly growing market for geoanalytics services. Now, for the first time anywhere, analytics customers will be able to access this newly-collected, cost-effective dataset at scale via APIs from a powerful cloud computing platform. This tangibly demonstrates that our UrthePlatform is operational and ready for commercial service, and it shows yet again the strategic synergies of the company's acquisition last year of Deimos Imaging—synergies which are becoming increasingly evident to our customers."
UrtheCast is able to offer this powerful Deimos-1 U.S. dataset - cloud-free, every month for the contiguous U.S. - in part due to Deimos–1's wide swath of 650 km (22m GSD) and its extremely high revisit rate. The newly-flowing Deimos-1 data complements an already-existing 5-year archive of Deimos-1 data in the contiguous U.S. and forms part of a growing and powerful suite of medium-resolution sensors and global, high-quality datasets, including Theia (5m GSD) and USGS's Landsat 8 data (30m GSD multispectral, 15m pansharpened), all of which are ideal for analytics.
"It's unheard of in our industry to have access to data of this quality—in GeoTIFF format and at affordable price points," explains Jeff Stein, VP Business Development at Orbital Insight, a leader in advanced geoanalytics and deep learning technologies. "UrtheCast is pushing the art of the possible in our industry with the speed with which they get high-value pixels from space to the cloud for computation by Orbital Insight's A.I. algorithms."
"Having dependable access to high quality, cloud-free imagery of the contiguous U.S. every month, and the ability to extract this data for further analysis in GeoTIFF format is enormously valuable for those working to sustainably manage and restore American forests," states Crystal Davis, Director of Global Forest Watch, a leading organization seeking to increase the ability of governments, businesses and civil society to protect, manage, and restore forests. "UrtheCast's technology and mission to democratize the Earth Observation industry is creating a step change for global forest monitoring and will make a real difference for our planet."
In the coming months, UrtheCast expects to add further UrtheCast data as well as data from third-party providers to the UrthePlatform, with the objective of providing an increasingly powerful capability for geoanalytics applications and markets.
About UrtheCast Corp.
UrtheCast Corp. is a Vancouver-based technology company 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 the UrthePlatform, or distributed directly to partners and customers. UrtheCast is also developing and anticipates launching the world's first fully-integrated constellation of multispectral optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites, called OptiSAR™, in addition to its proposed UrtheDaily™ constellation concept, which the Company believes will together revolutionize monitoring of our planet with high-quality, medium and high-resolution, and high-coverage and high-revisit imagery in all weather conditions, any time of day. Common shares of UrtheCast trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange as ticker 'UR'.
Forward Looking Information
This release contains certain information which, as presented, constitutes "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information involves statements that relate to future events and often addresses expected future business and financial performance, containing words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", and "expect", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could" or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions and includes, but is not limited to; its plans to continue adding Deimos-1 imagery to its UrthePlatform shortly after acquisition, its expectations regarding adding additional UrtheCast sensors and other third party data sources to the UrthePlatform, its plans for the OptiSAR Constellation or with respect to the proposed UrtheDaily concept, and its expectations regarding geoanalytics customers using the UrthePlatform. Such statements reflect UrtheCast's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by UrtheCast, are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors could cause UrtheCast's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, among others: any failures or interruptions in the UrthePlatform infrastructure or the Deimos-1 satellite; any delays or failures in the design, development, construction, launch and operational commissioning of the proposed OptiSAR™ Constellation or the failure of the UrtheDaily concept to develop beyond the conceptual phase; the Company being unable to convert the Memoranda of Understanding in respect of funding of the OptiSAR™ Constellation into binding, definitive agreements, as well as those factors and assumptions discussed in UrtheCast's annual information form dated March 29, 2016, (the "AIF"), which is available under UrtheCast's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information is developed based on assumptions about such risks, uncertainties and other factors set out herein, in the AIF, and as disclosed from time to time on UrtheCast's SEDAR profile. UrtheCast undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by Canadian securities laws. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.
SOURCE UrtheCast Corp.
Share this article