Unseenlabs collaborates with Ursa Space to hunt down illegal culprits

Unseenlabs Breton took advantage of International Satellite Business Week in Paris to announce a new partnership with Ursa Space. Both companies specialize in ground-based detection from space. Unseenlabs has a constellation of eight satellites in low orbit that scan the waters for poachers or even degassers in protected areas.

Illegal practices are still common in the sea world. In theory, a ship should always have an active AIS beacon in order to be visible on virtual maps. But this lighthouse can turn off, thus making the boat invisible. After that he is free to go to protected areas or territorial waters to fish.

Thanks to its unique technology focused on radiofrequency, Unseenlabs is able to locate its ships and follow them on their maneuvers. This data is then used by government institutions, insurance companies or NGOs.

win-win partnership

By adding Ursa Space services to its offering, Unseenlabs anticipates a significant partnership that will allow Rennes to take advantage of the imagery and constellation of Ursa Space. For Clément Galic, CEO of Unseenlabs, this partnership made sense, as the two companies had the same goal.

“We have a joint mission with Ursa Space: to shine a light on the dark places in our oceans, and help our customers by providing them with reliable and actionable information from all points on Earth.”

A view shared by Eric Cote, Director of Data Services at Ursa Space. “Partnering with Unseenlabs advances our marine sensing services, providing additional insights that we can incorporate into our image catalog, analysis, and data integration.”

Unseenlabs: tracking ships from space

Founded in 2015, Unseenlabs is today one of the most progressive companies in the French aerospace sector. It is one of the leading companies in the geolocation of radio frequency signals. Thanks to its technology, it claims to be able to collect data from any region of the world, without having to take meteorological data into account.

Over the past few months, Unseenlabs has been working on several key points on the planet. In particular, she demonstrated her service by taking a picture of the naval presence off Scotland. In this image (available below) ships are represented by colored dots. All the little red dots are boats that have activated their AIS beacon, others have been spotted thanks to Unseenlabs.

During this Global Satellite Action Week, Unseenlabs made another announcement with its partner GomSpace. Six new satellites are under construction. It is supposed to be completed by the end of 2023. After contacting us, Unseenlabs confirmed the announced amount of four million euros for the signing of this new contract.

At the moment we don’t know which actuator Breton will use to reach space. So far, Unseenlabs has always worked with Rocket Lab, but the New Zealand company isn’t the only solution studied.