At Capella Space, we pride ourselves on a culture that fosters innovation through welcoming diverse backgrounds, promoting transparency and encouraging new ways of doing things. Today, we landed the #5 spot on Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies list for the space industry category – which I’m proud to say is not only due to our revolutionary synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite technology, but also our company values and vision.
Each year, Fast Company recognizes select businesses for their profoundly transformative impact on industry and culture. Our SAR satellite imagery and technology can be used to improve disaster response, security, and infrastructure monitoring. It can detect up to millimeter-scale changes on the Earth’s surface, down to the moisture level of the soil on a farm and the sub-meter shifts in the infrastructure of a dam. As the effects of climate change on the wellbeing of our social and natural environments grow ever more apparent, it is critical we recognize the volatility of our planet and develop technologies and tools to address it.
This award epitomizes why I founded Capella Space, and what our team continually strives to achieve. Earth observation data has traditionally relied on optical imaging that cannot see through darkness or clouds, but the need to have reliable, real-time information about our planet is growing exponentially. When Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and its 239 passengers went missing in 2014, I was shocked that rescue teams did not have the tools to locate and rescue the passengers quickly. Why wasn’t there accessible, affordable technology available to solve this problem? This drove myself and a team of aerospace and technology experts to develop a solution that not only provides Earth observation data at any given moment, but also makes that data accessible to the companies and organizations trying to make better decisions and ultimately solve some of the world’s biggest problems.
Fast forward six years to today – we are growing a team of longtime industry veterans and burgeoning experts, and harnessing SAR technology that has a variety of defense and commercial applications. This year in particular will be groundbreaking, as we prepare to launch 7 satellites into space: Sequoia this month, and our Whitney constellation later this year.
With innovation at the core of who we are, Capella is making big strides to democratize Earth observation data and to build the world’s largest commercial radar satellite constellation. It is both humbling and affirming to be recognized alongside other innovative companies. Our team has worked diligently to get here and we are honored to receive such recognition.
