HEO, an Australian company that photographs spacecraft from orbit, has signed on to use Planet’s SkySat constellation. Under the deal announced Aug. 17, SkySats idle between Earth observation passes can be pointed at other objects in space, an activity the industry calls non-Earth imaging.
Financial terms were not disclosed. The SkySat imagery will initially reach only HEO’s U.S. government customers because of licensing limits, a constraint the company shrugs off given that about 90% of its business already comes from government buyers.
The deal pushes HEO’s accessible sensor pool past 50 spacecraft spread across several Earth observation constellations. Demand is rising for orbital eyes that can spot and assess suspicious behavior among spacecraft, according to Jon Powers, general manager of Planet Federal. Fusing SkySat’s sharp optics with HEO’s analysis, he said, yields fast, expandable on-orbit imaging coverage. HEO chief executive Will Crowe said the mission does not need big, costly satellites, just cameras positioned correctly at the right moment, which is why the firm prizes a mix of sensors and orbits.
With Continuum-1, its first owned spacecraft, bought earlier this year, HEO can shift from request-by-request tasking toward steady, repeated imaging of chosen targets. The company has also flagged plans to fly the satellite within tens of kilometers of an abandoned rocket stage, a test meant to show how close-in maneuvering could keep specific objects under watch.
Non-Earth imaging is emerging as a distinct niche within space domain awareness, used to identify satellites deployed in rideshare clusters and to diagnose failures such as a tumbling Starlink spacecraft.
