National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Awards Pixxel with 5-year Hyperspectral Data Contract

LOS ANGELES , March 22 /Businesswire/ - Pixxel, a leader in cutting-edge earth-imaging technology, has been awarded a 5-year contract by the NRO Commercial Systems Program Office (CSPO) under the Strategic Commercial Enhancements Broad Agency Announcement for Commercial Hyperspectral Capabilities.

Pixxel will provide technical hyperspectral imagery (HSI) remote sensing capabilities via modeling and simulation and data evaluation. Using its currently on-orbit pathfinder systems and future HSI constellations, Pixxel will demonstrate its capabilities through end-to-end tasking, collection, and product dissemination and respond to ad-hoc product ordering and delivery requests from the NRO and its partners.

“The entire team here at Pixxel is excited to begin this journey with the NRO,” said Awais Ahmed, CEO and co-founder of Pixxel. “We are fully committed to this fantastic opportunity to offer our imaging capabilities to the organization, its partners, and the U.S. geospatial intelligence community.”

“We look forward to a collaboration with NRO CSPO and our esteemed partners, Riverside Research, Rochester Institute Technology (RIT) Center for Imaging Science (CIS), and Labsphere to advance this promising new space-based commercial remote sensing technology,” said Pixxel Vice President, Skip Maselli.

Pixxel’s hyperspectral satellites capture images at hundreds of wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum and reveal key data about the health of our planet. Pixxel has seen a landmark year of growth, launching three pathfinder missions into orbit and growing their customer base across agriculture, mining, climate, oil and gas, government, and more. This agreement marks Pixxel’s first publicly announced government customer and aligns with growing public sector interest in climate monitoring tools.

About Pixxel

Pixxel is a space data company building a constellation of the world’s highest-resolution hyperspectral earth imaging satellites and the analytical tools to mine insights from the data. The constellation will aim to provide global coverage every 24 hours and help detect, monitor, and predict global phenomena across agriculture, mining, environment and energy use cases.

Co-founded by then-20-year-olds Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal, the space tech startup aims to build a health monitor for the planet by 2024. Pixxel has worked with notable organizations such as the Indian Space Research Organization, NASA JPL, and SpaceX amongst other space stalwarts. The organization is backed by Lightspeed, Radical Ventures, Relativity's Jordan Noone, Seraphim Capital, Ryan Johnson, Blume Ventures, Sparta LLC and Accenture among others. For more information visit www.pixxel.space or follow Pixxel on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About NRO

The NRO develops, acquires, launches, and operates the world’s best intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellites to secure and expand America’s advantage in space. We are building a diversified and resilient architecture of spacecraft and ground systems designed to meet the challenges of a changing space environment by accelerating innovation and leveraging strategic partnerships, backed by a diverse and highly skilled workforce. At NRO, we see it, hear it, and sense it so our nation’s warfighters and policymakers have decision advantage amid increasing global competition. Learn more at NRO.gov.

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