Open Cosmos plans Open Constellation to unify climate change data

It will be built and managed by Open Cosmos to provide data to address climate change challenges. Essentially, entities that add satellites to the constellation gain access to the broader data.

Organizations that have already signed up include the UK Space Agency, UK Satellite Applications Catapult, IEC (Spain), CEiiA (Portugal) and the European Space Agency.

Six satellites

The first batch of six satellites is scheduled to launch in November this year, and the company expects more batches of the constellation to be announced soon.

The Harwell, Oxfordshire-based company aims to have a total of 25 satellites in the constellation, with a combination of spatial and spectral resolution to suit data needs.

In addition to manufacturing and launch management of the small satellites, Open Cosmos will be responsible for maintaining the satellites and downlinking and processing the payload data. This data will then be made available to partner agencies for access and analysis through the company’s DataCosmos data-sharing platform, which launched earlier this year.

“The major challenges facing the world today are global and satellites naturally provide that global perspective we need to make the right decisions.” said Rafael Jorda Siquier, Founder and CEO of Open Cosmos. “A key goal of Open Constellation is to make the necessary data and information from space more accessible.”

“Interoperable infrastructure will provide the right balance between the budget organizations or government can afford and the associated performance they need.”

Open Constellation was announced at the International Astronautical Congress in Paris.

Magnetic field

Earlier in May, ESA awarded Open Cosmos a €5.2 million contract to work on its NanoMagSat mission.

NanoMagSat is a planned small satellite constellation that aims to use a new set of instruments to observe the Earth’s magnetic field and ionospheric environment. It will succeed the current ESA Swarm satellites, which have been monitoring space weather since 2013.

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