Agriculture

6.        (a)    AGRISAT will ultimately form part of a constellation of 7 satellites, belonging to a company        called EOS Data Analytics, founded and chaired by the well-known tech entrepreneur Max        Polyakov, https://maxpolyakov.com/. The satellites will not continuously image the entire        planet, as per Landsat and Sentinel-2, but being considerably higher resolution, 1-3 metres, will        be tasked and targeted to specific project focus areas and generally focus data acquisition        on agricultural areas, with a 5 – 6 day revisit time. 

Thus it is expected that commercial users worldwide will be able to request specific coverage – albeit at a cost.  They eventually envisage a full cycle turnaround time from data acquisition to data delivery in 16-24 hours, with a 1-day revisit time on specific tasking.

Further detailed information on the EOS constellation at: https://eos.com/eossat/

1. As stated by EOS: “crop prediction, vegetation state control, weed and pest management, weather forecast, and many more. Besides, remote sensing contributes to climate change prevention and satisfaction of global food demand by supporting precision agriculture, which enables farmers to make weighed, data-driven decisions”.  “They will embrace up to 40 km swath width in 11 bands channels at close to 1,5 – 2,8m resolution. The satellite’s service period is five years, and all the main components are fully redundant”. Although the data products will be (commercially) provided by EOS, Dragonfly is evidently negotiating access for South African-specific applications and are keen to engage with the Department and other role players to learn what our needs are.  Depending on costs there may be interested role players in the sector – and we in the Department would certainly like to explore the system’s utility in crop identification, to support our so-called “Flyover” crop census, and crop monitoring in a research capacity.  
2. (i) As stated, the image products are wholly privately owned and will be available commercially, as are many other satellite products at the higher resolution end of the scale.  (ii) There are various free offerings provided by the coarser-scale satellites such as LandSat (USGS), Sentinel (European Space Agency), MODIS (NASA) and many more – all of which have excellent and well-proven application in various aspects of agriculture.  Generally however, these free offerings are too coarse to support analytics required by precision agriculture.  EOS is thus aiming for that market, amongst others.
3. Dr. Sias Mostert is Chairman of SCS Aerospace Group (Space Commercial Services Holdings) met with members of the Department during 2019, before the establishment of Dragonfly.  It is unclear whether these early explorative engagements relate to the Dragonfly Project.  It appears that attracting foreign funding (from Max Polyakov) was a more expedient route for Dragonfly to follow, for various reasons. Nonetheless Mr Dave du Toit, Head of Dragonfly’s Advisory Council has expressed enthusiastic interest in meeting with our GIS team upon the return of their CEO, Brian Dean, from abroad.   

The satellite is the first of a seven-satellite constellation in low Earth orbit for customer EOSDA (EOS Data Analytics). The remaining six satellites of the constellation will be deployed over the next three years. EOS SAT is the world’s first agriculture-focused satellite constellation providing the agriculture and forestry industry with high-quality data to support efficient and sustainable practices. Images obtained from Dragonfly’s EOS SAT-1 will deliver valuable information for harvest monitoring, application mapping, seasonal planning and assessments that analyse information such as soil moisture, yield prediction and biomass levels. This data will support growers with reducing carbon dioxide emissions and help them to develop sustainable agricultural methods. Such information will have important environmental benefits for the planet and help prevent natural habitats from being diminished for crop growth and maintain biodiversity. Equipped with two DragonEye electro-optical imagers, EOS SAT-1 will

provide 44km swath panchromatic and multispectral imagery across 11 spectral bands at close to 1m resolution – making it one of the most capable imaging satellites in LEO. To address the issues of existing satellites, such as low sensor resolution, limited spectral capacities, and poor performance during cloudy weather, EOS SAT satellite cameras will capture imagery using 13 agri-related bands: RGB, 2 NIR channels, 3 RedEdge channels, WaterVapor, Aerosol, Pan, and 2 SWIR channels. EOS SAT-1 will have 11 spectral bands, excluding the SWIR bands. EOS SAT-2 and the following satellites are expected to get into orbit within 2023-2024. The full operational capability of the EOS SAT constellation is scheduled to be achieved in 2025

After reaching full operation by 2025, EOS SAT will cover up to 100% of countries with the largest areas of farmlands and forestlands, amounting to 98.5% of such lands across the globe. Bryan Dean, CEO and Co-founder of Dragonfly Aerospace.