ESA Taps ICEYE For First Civil Security From Space Partnership To Revolutionize Disaster Management

ICEYE's collaboration with ESA will develop the next generation of Earth Observation insights for stronger community resilience. 

Helsinki, Finland – October 12, 2023 –  ICEYE , the global leader in persistent monitoring with radar imaging satellites and an expert in natural catastrophe solutions, has been selected as a partner by the European Space Agency (ESA) to participate in the Civil Security from Space Programme (CSS) to revolutionize disaster and crisis management from the vantage point of space. This is the first CSS Partnership contract to be signed under the CSS program and aims to develop an advanced suite of natural catastrophe monitoring services. 

Under the three-year partnership, ICEYE and ESA will collaborate on the "Disaster Management from Space" project to develop a comprehensive suite of Disaster Management Solutions for effective natural catastrophe management, and an imaging service underpinned by ICEYE’s fleet. The partnership will drive the evolution of ICEYE’s state-of-the-art hazard insights, while designing and testing the next-generation of Earth observation technology.  

Josef Aschbacher, Director General of ESA, said: “I am delighted to sign the first ESA Partnership Project with ICEYE under the Civil Security from Space Programme, supporting European efforts to use space to monitor, mitigate and resolve civil security and crisis events to keep people, infrastructures and resources safe on Earth. We look forward to working with our Finnish partner on this project.”

“This partnership is an opportunity to test the boundaries of natural catastrophe monitoring solutions, alongside ESA. The CSS programme demonstrates ESA and the European Space Sector's commitment to building community resilience,” said Rafal Modrzewski, CEO and Co-Founder at ICEYE. “We are proud to have been selected to participate in this programme, and to be at the forefront of the new space-based crisis observation and management era.”

The CSS programme is a new ESA multi-disciplinary programme started in November 2022 to propel the integration of Europe’s competencies and assets into monitoring, mitigating and resolving civil security and crisis events. The programme offers European industry the opportunity to maximize the use of space capabilities in addressing challenges in civil security and crisis management. The CSS programme fosters innovative concepts and solutions through collaboration between civil security stakeholders, participating states, and consortiums of users, service providers, and the space industry. These innovative ventures encompass research and development activities leading up to on-ground or in-orbit validation and testing. This project is  the first ESA partnership with a Finnish prime and will be executed with the delegation support from Finland, Poland and Spain.

ICEYE owns and operates the world’s largest constellation of SAR satellites, providing a vital source of insights for government and enterprise needs in sectors such as insurance, natural catastrophe response and recovery, maritime, national security, humanitarian relief, and climate change monitoring. The company has now deployed 27 satellites since 2018, including both commercially available and dedicated customer missions.