Brenda Marie Rivers
HawkEye 360 has finished environmental testing activities for a new cluster of radio frequency-based geospatial intelligence satellites slated to launch later this year.
The three HawkEye Cluster 2 satellites will handle RF data processing and geolocation operations for applications such as maritime radar transmission, emergency beacons, Very High-Frequency marine radios and L-band satellite technologies to support U.S. and international customers, Hawkeye said Thursday.
The Cluster 2 spacecraft includes features such as a software-defined radio, onboard computing technologies and simultaneous-capture signal collection elements to support HawkEye’s machine learning-based data visualization activities.
Cluster 2 will join the first group of HawkEye RF satellites launched in 2018.
John Serafini, CEO of HawkEye, said the RF geoanalytics effort is meant to support missions beyond defense and intelligence to include animal poaching, human trafficking and illegal fishing.
“In just 18 months, our first cluster has tracked 20 million geolocations and signals of interest to feed growing demand from civil service and defense clients around the world,†he added.
HawkEye partnered with the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies' Space Flight Laboratory to develop, integrate and test the RF payloads.
The team will commence launch integration work for Cluster 2 ahead of the 2021 and 2022 launches of the next five satellite clusters.
