Today, Orbital Sidekick (OSK) unveiled the first set of insights from its GHOSt™ (Global Hyperspectral Observation Satellite) constellation. GHOSt 1, 2 and 3 launched aboard the Transporter 7 and 8 ride-share missions earlier this year and incorporate the most advanced hyperspectral commercial satellites in orbit with a ground sampling distance of eight meters.
Figure 1. OSK’s GHOSt satellite orbiting Earth
The satellites capture 472 bands of light across the electromagnetic spectrum, which is 100X more spectral information than traditional satellites. Onboard AI processing draws insights from the hyperspectral data near-instantly, with the ability to chemically fingerprint any object on Earth. This empowers partners across industries to act on the findings in enough time to make an impact.
The initial insights from these images demonstrate the power and possibilities of OSK’s intelligence, including our ability to monitor Earth with the highest hyperspectral resolution that exists. This level of hyperspectral monitoring provides unprecedented insights that will aid the global energy transition – starting with monitoring oil and gas pipeline infrastructure. By 2024, OSK will add three more satellites to its GHOSt constellation and increase monitoring capabilities significantly.
Monitoring Pipeline Integrity
The energy sector accounts for 40% of methane leaks from human activity, but catching and preventing these leaks is a major logistical challenge for industry stakeholders. Current methods of monitoring energy infrastructure – such as aerial scans, low resolution satellites and pressure sensors – are expensive, inefficient and difficult to scale.
OSK’s GHOSt constellation presents an emerging solution. The constellation persistently monitors the globe and observes energy infrastructure from space. OSK then analyzes this data to detect leaks, contaminations, and other intrusive events and alerts partners of suspected leaks in real time via our Spectral Intelligence Global Monitoring Application (SIGMA™) platform. This enables energy partners to take immediate action to minimize emissions by detecting leaks as early as possible and preventing them from happening in the first place.
The images below are methane plumes detected by OSK’s GHOSt constellation. Our satellites and onboard AI processing are able to identify the chemical composition of methane as well as its concentration to detect potential leaks. Yellow indicates the highest concentration of methane and purple indicates the lowest.
Figure 2. Examples of methane plumes detected by OSK's GHOSt Constellation
In order to detect leaks early and prevent them altogether, energy infrastructure companies need accurate information about their pipelines, and they need it in real time. We leverage our proprietary hyperspectral data and satellites to continuously monitor pipelines for our partners. Our 8m GSD allows us to inform customers not only where leaks occur, but if it’s their assets that are leaking or someone else’s. One of OSK's new features is the ability to identify where a company's well pad locations are and whether leaks occur around the well pad areas or on the pipeline. This is an important distinction for energy infrastructure companies looking to proactively manage their emissions.
Figure 3. Well pads identified by OSK's GHOSt Constellation
OSK has invested heavily into building tools that can extract information out of HSI datasets to provide customers with actionable insights. These tools enable OSK to spectrally identify specific risks to energy infrastructure, including vehicles that may be acting suspiciously on a pipeline Right-of-Way (RoW), along with any new construction, and entities looking to dig that could damage a pipeline.
Figure 4. An example where OSK detected anomalous activities along a pipeline RoW
Figure 5. An example of how OSK uses SIGMA to analyze alerts and detections along customer assets and inform them of any issues
GHOSt is already making a significant impact on the energy industry. Last year, OSK monitored 12,000 miles of pipeline via aerial scans using GHOSt’s hyperspectral sensors. During this time, OSK flagged 100 suspected methane leaks, 200 suspected liquid hydrocarbon leaks and more than 300 intrusive events related to construction.
Beyond monitoring energy infrastructure, OSK’s hyperspectral monitoring has a myriad of use cases, including mineral exploration, precision agriculture, mitigating environmental disasters, and intrusion detection for the defense sector. Looking ahead, we plan to launch even more satellites to expand access across these industries, ultimately helping more companies achieve sustainable operations. With our initial datasets, we’re able to analyze the chemical composition of each pixel and have started building out our proprietary spectral library. We’re building one of the most robust remote sensing analytics capabilities that will assist us to understand the dynamic nature of our planet on a chemical level.