It is now a widely held belief that Elon Musk’s SpaceX/Starlink is the biggest threat to satellite industry incumbents and in a few short years, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Kuiper. The threat is not isolated to the space and satellite industries. Telcos/MNOs and cloud industry players are likewise worried that these two players, indeed two key.
Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) applications are a major driver for Earth Observation (EO) markets, but the overarching question on demand for non-imagery sources in the long-term, and the size of the opportunity is still front and center.
Technological and regulatory progress has greatly expanded the remote sensing/Earth Observation (EO) market. However, significant tradeoffs continue to exist in current earth imaging solutions: EO satellites and constellations can provide wide area coverage but are susceptible to cloud cover and are usually at lower resolutions (with HR being relatively infrequent).