SAN FRANCISCO - Canadian hyperspectral startup Wyvern began publicly sharing Earth-observation images on February 3 from its high-resolution satellite sensors.
"This Open Data Program release is not only important for direct applications in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, but because hyperspectral image data from satellites has never been widely commercially available," Wyvern co-founder Callie Lissinna told SpaceNews by email. "This is a relatively new type of data -- a level of detail that is new to the satellite imagery industry -- so allowing the community to innovate new use cases using free data is particularly important and exciting."
The 25 images released by Wyvern depict forests, wildfires, crops, coastal bathymetry, open-pit mines, solar farms, and oil and gas wells globally. Additional imagery is expected later this year.
Adam O'Connor, Wyvern chief product officer, stated, "We are thrilled to launch our Open Data Program, reflecting Wyvern's commitment to foster innovation in the remote sensing community and demonstrate the power of hyperspectral imagery to help solve some of our most urgent global challenges." He emphasized the program's role in supporting humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions.
Wyvern's three Dragonette cubesats, built by AAC Clyde Space, provide imagery with a resolution of 5.3 meters per pixel across 23 spectral bands. A fourth Dragonette is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2025.
In addition to its own satellites, Wyvern will gather data from Loft Orbital satellites, with the first Loft satellite carrying a Wyvern hyperspectral payload set to launch no earlier than March 2025.
Wyvern's initiative is inspired by the open data philosophy of Umbra, aiming to collectively benefit the geospatial community through free imagery sharing. The hyperspectral datasets are released under a creative commons, or commercial use, license.