Horizon Technologies has shipped their first AMBER
cubesat payload to AAC Clyde Space in Glasgow, Scotland — once the first payload arrives in Scotland, it will undergo testing and then be integrated into the AAC Clyde Space bus in preparation for launch.
AMBER is a public/private partnership with the UK Government and Horizon Technologies uses innovative and proprietary technologies to collect and geolocate RF signals from Earth without the need of self-reporting technologies, such as AIS (Automatic Identification System), in detecting and monitoring vessels and without the use of “clusters” of satellites.
AMBER uses single cubesats rather than “clusters. This results in lower total system costs and these savings are passed on to Horizon Technologies’ customers. In addition to geolocation, the AMBER constellation will provide a detailed and advanced (demodulated) data set on the signals which are collected.
The company’s worldwide customers (many of them current users of our FlyingFish airborne SIGINT system) want far more than just geolocations for RF emitters. Customers want actionable intelligence data on targets of interest in addition to geolocation. For many maritime targets of interest, it is important to meet customer requirements for detailed, granular data such as extracted GPS locations, specific radar ID data, L-Band metadata/content, etc., from emitters. AMBER provides this detail.
Despite COVID, Horizon Technologies is completing its most successful year — FlyingFish sales and customers are at an all-time high. Next year, thanks to the outstanding dedication of the entire Horizon Technologies development team, and the firm’s partners, AMBER will be on-orbit and providing critical MDA data to our commercial and government customers.
Executive Comment
Horizon Technologies CEO, John Beckner, stated that “Horizon Technologies is not only on track to launch the first AMBER Maritime Intelligence CubeSat into orbit in mid-2021, but will be launching additional AMBER CubeSats next year.” Beckner noted, “We are thrilled with the continued support we are receiving from AAC NEWS RELEASE Clyde Space and the success of our partnership with them. Due to Covid-related delays affecting our launch windows, we have had time to implement major improvements in the expanded dataset we will be providing to our customers, and are very excited in being able to provide solutions to customers’ Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) challenges.”
