HawkEye 360 Inc. has announced that the company’s recently-launched “Cluster 2” satellites have achieved initial operating capability — the trio of satellites, which entered orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in January, have completed functional testing, moved into proper formation, and begun to geolocate RF signals and they are currently supplying RF data to customers and will soon ramp up output to reach full operating capability.
The Cluster 2 satellites greatly improve upon the capabilities of HawkEye 360’s first “Pathfinder” (Cluster 1) satellites. The new satellites have redundant systems for longevity, increased computing for on-board data processing, a dedicated GNSS antenna to monitor GPS interference, enhancements to HawkEye 360’s industry-leading geolocation accuracy, wider range of RF frequency coverage, and up to 10 times more collection capacity.
HawkEye 360 is launching five additional clusters (15 total satellites) to establish its baseline constellation. Cluster 3 is on track to launch June 2021, Cluster 4 for October 2021, and further launches planned every quarter thereafter through 2023. Once the baseline constellation is on-orbit, the company will be able to maintain revisit rates of considerably less than an hour to support time-sensitive monitoring of developing defense, security, and environmental situations.
“The commissioning of these satellites is a major breakthrough for commercial geospatial intelligence,” said CEO John Serafini. “As the leading global provider of space-based RF insights, HawkEye 360 is pleased that our newest satellites are performing exceptionally well and delivering high-quality RF data to our U.S. government, international government, commercial and humanitarian customers.”
“Cluster 2 and its associated ground systems symbolize our ability to rapidly deliver new impactful capability — capability essential for supporting our clients’ evolving requirements for global commercial RF data and analytics,” said Executive Vice President Alex Fox. “We have a robust roadmap for deploying the most advanced commercial RF solution required to support this high growth industry. In conjunction with Mission Space — our RF analytics platform — we are opening the door for customers across a wide array of industries to seamlessly harness valuable RF insights to further their operational objectives.”