CATALYST is rolling out a new product today that aims to make city skylines safer from space.
UrbanSAR will be able to detect millimeter-scale shifts in buildings, on a floor-by-floor basis. The changes will be spotted by interferometric SAR, which uses data from at least two SAR sats to determine very small changes over time, according to a press release from CATALYST—a brand of Ottawa, Canada-based remote sensing software firm PCI Geomatics.
Why it matters: As cities put up new construction, builders don’t know what they don’t know—and there are many blind spots when it comes to traditional monitoring, according to CATALYST. One study in Toronto found that the top floors of new buildings—higher than ground-based monitoring can measure—moved up to 30 millimeters.
“Now we can show a construction firm what was already moving before they broke ground, an insurer the risk they were underwriting blind, and a city authority the consequences of densification they had approved but were not monitoring,” PCI Geomatics CEO June McAlarey said in a statement.
Using assets in space also allows for a fuller picture of a building’s status outside of the single structure, by taking into account nearby tunnels, roads, and other infrastructure, CATALYST said.
Zoom out: Space is critical to urban safety beyond building monitoring, according to a report from the Australian Space Agency. Assets in orbit can help urban planners:
- Monitor temperature and air quality in cities;
- Track severe weather and natural disasters;
- Study land use, and the health of green spaces within cities.
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York Space Systems ($YSS) plans to acquire terminal manufacturer ALL.SPACE for $355M, according to paperwork filed with the SEC yesterday.
The cash-and-stock deal will leave ALL.SPACE as an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary. York expects to:
Inorganic material: The acquisition comes hot on the heels of York’s March acquisition of Orbion Space Technology, a MI-based manufacturer of Hall-effect electric propulsion systems.
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