Currently two companies categorize under space services. The business model is based around either (1) selling satellite-acquired data, or (2) selling customers payload space on satellites.
Spire Global and Sidus Space each do both.
- Spire provides a range of data including Maritime AIS data, radio occultation data (RO) for weather forecasting, and ADS-B data for air traffic management. Spire also sells customers payload hosting on Spire’s satellites. Spire has launched ~200 satellites with customers including GHGsat’s methane detectors, Lacuna’s IoT gateway payload, Myriota’s software defined radios, and Hancom InSpace’s optical payloads. Spire also has hosted payloads for various defense agencies. Spire interestingly itself acquires AIS data through 58 payloads hosted on the Iridium’s Next satellite constellation.
- Sidus Space also operates both models of selling satellite acquired data and hosting customer payloads. However with just one satellite built and launched, their scale compared to Spire is tiny. Their main hosted payload customer is HEO Space, with plans to host two non-earth imaging camera systems. Sidus also has one AIS sensor in orbit onboard its single satellite.