RapidEye, the only geospatial solutions provider to own and operate their own satellite constellation, announced that their system has successfully completed all post-launch testing and calibration activities, and is now ready to take on commercial operations.
The satellite constellation was successfully launched in August 2008. Since that time, RapidEye’s prime contractor, MDA (MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.) has been conducting the commissioning period on both the space and ground segment in which system performance and product quality were thoroughly measured, analyzed and verified.
Paulo E. Cruvinel, Researcher from Embrapa – Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and Executive Coordinator of RIPA – Agribusiness Technological Innovation and Prospecting Network explains what impact the collaboration with RapidEye will have on their research program. “Embrapa continuously invests in strategic areas to get transit on knowledge frontiers and new technologies generation. This effort seeks to its institutional architecture in order to achieve more agility and flexibility for better interacting with public and private innovation networks and proper respond to new demands of the agriculture growth. With RapidEye being fully operational, we can better support Government needs, implementing projects related to agrometeorologic risk management and to monitor the environmental dimensions of the sustainability in tropical agriculture.”
"We successfully started the pilot project with Rapideye and we expect that it helps us to make better assessments regarding what grows where, what is damaged and what is insured potentially improving the quality of our processes and generating cost reduction", remarks Max Thiermann, President of Allianz Seguros S.A., Brazil.
A worldwide network of distributors is being assembled by RapidEye to facilitate easy access to RapidEye’s products by customers in their own language and region. These partnerships should be completed later this year. For more information about current distributors or how to purchase RapidEye’s products or services, please visit www.rapideye.de/home/how-to-buy.
An e-commerce platform is also currently under construction that will be available from RapidEye’s website. This self-service shop will allow customers to search for, purchase and immediately download RapidEye Standard Image Products with no minimum order size. The company plans to unveil ‘The RapidEye Kiosk’ within the next few months.
If you are interested in having access to demonstration datasets of RapidEye Standard Image Products, RapidEye has recently released an image of Griffith, Australia on their website in two of their three product levels. They are available for download at www.rapideye.de/demo-products.
