DMCii and partner Spacemetric have successfully delivered an image from satellite to end user in just 11 minutes, as part of a demonstration at the European Space Agency’s ‘Big Data from Space’ conference, where industry experts discuss how to distribute large volumes of data from space to the people who need it.

An image of Rome (where the event is being held) was acquired at 09:17 UTC on Wednesday 5 June, and it was processed and made available by 09:28 UTC the same morning (image not shown).

Adina Gillespie, DMCii’s product development manager said: “Delivering images from space to users usually takes at least a day, so demonstrating that it’s possible to capture Rome, download the image and process it in just 11 minutes is hugely exciting and proves that an age where civil users can tap into near real-time data from space is just around the corner.”

DMCii specialises in the fast delivery of images for time-critical applications such as monitoring crop growth and monitoring disasters where imagery has a shelf life of about 24 hours, after which it ceases to be useful. Operating a multi-satellite constellation means that DMCii has more ‘eyes in the sky’, acquiring huge volumes of data every day. The company has already increased the speed of delivery with its direct downlink service that downlinks data directly to the user, and is planning an ‘always on’ service will cut delivery times for satellite imaging by continuously imaging the Earth without the need to command the satellite and wait for the image to be acquired.

The live demonstration of rapid image access is using the latest capabilities developed within the NGI project (Near Real-Time Geo-annotated Imagery) for the European Space Agency by Spacemetric. More information on which is available at http://www.spacemetric.com/node/142.