Monitoring Energy Infrastructure with SAR

In an era of global energy competition, national security and economic stability often hinge on the ability to monitor oil infrastructure with speed, accuracy, and reliability. From offshore terminals to inland power plants, energy assets demand continuous oversight—even in the most remote or austere environments.

Capella Space’s Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) constellation delivers just that. With secure, taskable access to high-resolution imagery captured through darkness, cloud cover, and sandstorms, Capella enables governments and energy stakeholders to gain uninterrupted visibility into critical reserves, ports, and pipelines around the clock.

Oil infrastructure is both a strategic asset and a high-risk target. From geopolitical tensions to regional instability, threats to energy facilities can have cascading consequences for national economies and global markets. Surveillance blind spots at night or during adverse weather leave vulnerabilities that can delay response and obscure situational awareness. Capella’s SAR satellites overcome these challenges with persistent, all-weather imaging and rapid revisit times—ensuring you never lose sight of your most valuable infrastructure.

Captured just after midnight, Capella SAR image of the UAE’s critical oil terminal showcases our ability to monitor activity during periods when traditional sensors fall short.

SAR in Action: Port of Fujairah, UAE

AOI: Port of Fujairah
As one of the largest bunkering hubs outside the Strait of Hormuz, the Port of Fujairah plays a vital role in global energy logistics. Capella’s Spotlight Wide imagery reveals the terminal layout, vessel traffic, and infrastructure details with 1.0-meter resolution clarity—despite the darkness and potential for environmental interference like haze or sand.

Midnight Watch on Global Supply Flows:

  • Track tank fill levels and dockside activity
  • Verify vessel presence or staging patterns overnight
  • Enhance situational awareness with revisit-based pattern tracking
Using Capella's Stripmap mode, our satellites captured the Al-Qassim power plant at night—highlighting its surrounding infrastructure and transport corridors with high-resolution, wide-area coverage.

SAR in Action: Al-Qassim Power Plant, Saudi Arabia

AOI: Buraydah, Saudi Arabia
Through real-time tasking in the Capella Console, analysts can observe nearby vehicle activity, supply chain links, and potential indicators of operational changes. This persistent monitoring capability empowers decision-makers to act swiftly based on secure, timely intelligence.

Powering Insight from Desert to Grid:

  • Monitor remote facilities with no reliance on daylight
  • Detect early signs of disruption or unauthorized activity
  • Track regional development or infrastructure expansion over time

Capella Delivers Repeatable, Actionable Insights

With time-series collections and integration capabilities from Capella's analytics partners like Ursa Space and Boxmica, users can monitor tank fill levels at key terminals, detect operational shifts or maintenance activity, and measure construction and capacity changes at storage sites over time. These insights support trend analysis, operational forecasting, and incident response planning in even the most complex energy environments.

Through the Capella Console, users gain autonomous tasking capabilities, streamlined access to archived collections, and delivery of encrypted, tamper-proof SAR data. All data is provided via a globally trusted TCPED (Tasking, Collection, Processing, Exploitation, Dissemination) workflow that supports real-time mission operations and decision-making. Capella’s constellation is trusted by global defense and intelligence agencies for its ability to deliver:

  • High-resolution insight into high-interest energy corridors
  • Fully automated tasking and downlink processes
  • Sovereign control of data collection, storage, and use

For nations that rely on oil infrastructure for domestic stability or global influence, Capella’s SAR platform offers a decisive edge. Energy infrastructure monitoring is no longer a daytime mission. With Capella’s radar satellites, governments and commercial stakeholders gain uninterrupted access to the insights they need to protect vital oil reserves, monitor supply flows, and plan for what’s next. Whether you’re overseeing a coastal port or a desert refinery, SAR delivers the visibility, control, and confidence to stay ahead of disruption.