ICEYE constellation

As of June 2023, 27 X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites have been launched for the ICEYE constellation. ICEYE will continue to grow its constellation capacity in specialised orbital planes designed to provide persistent monitoring capabilities and high resolution view of the Earth's surface. Four additional SAR satellites are scheduled to be launched by the end of 2023.

The ICEYE vision is to bring a new service to the market with an emphasis on superior reliability, a vastly higher rate of revisits to individual locations, and an unprecedented objectivity. The service is based on a completely new satellite and sensor design, leveraging recent advancement in various technologies and the New Space approach.

Each ICEYE satellite is in a sun-synchronous orbit with a nominal 1 - 22 day ground track repeat cycle (depending on satellite) with 15 imaging orbits per day. Each orbit plane is phased around the Earth with a different local time of ascending node (LTAN) and descending node (LTDN). This means that the constellation as a whole has the ability to observe a location at different times of the day rather than the more conventional dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbit.

The flexibility of the satellites facilitates imaging modes to be constantly evolved. Currently, the satellites operate in three modes called 'Strip Mode', 'Spot Mode' and 'Scan Mode'.

ICEYE's overall mission objective is to enable better decision making by providing timely and reliable Earth observation data. The company has been developing its own synthetic-aperture radar sensor technologies suitable for satellites under 100 kg in weight.