Straight out of science fiction, satellite startup Orbital Sidekick (OSK) is launching a constellation of hyperspectral imaging microsatellites powered by Nvidia’s Jetson AGX Xavier AI module.
Satellite images, like the ones we see on Google Earth, are usually 2D planes. But with specialized light sensors, these new satellites will spend the next five years in a sun-synchronous orbit, doing 3D imaging spectroscopy to sense with exquisite accuracy what’s going on at a given set of (X, Y, Z)* GPS coordinates. The new constellation of satellites will use their sensor suite to monitor the planet for hydrocarbon leaks — a job that has historically been the job of specially trained pilots.
OSK’s GHOSts can help minimize hydrocarbon spillage, which is a problem everywhere we use petroleum. But they’re not just useful to “big oil.” To accelerate the energy transition away from fossil fuels, says Nvidia, the platform can display a hyperspectral index of areas on a map that have signals of elements such as lithium and cobalt and differentiate between them and soil.
“Space-based hyperspectral intelligence basically breaks up the spectrum of light so it’s possible to see what’s happening at a chemical level without needing an aircraft,” said Kaushik Bangalore, vice president of payload engineering at Orbital Sidekick.
Seeing GHOSts
OSK does its work using a constellation of six Global Hyperspectral Observation Satellites (GHOSts, for short.) The GHOSts use Nvidia’s Jetson AGX Xavier module as an “AI engine at the satellites’ edge,” to process the hyperspectral data collected from its suite of sensors. With the AI module on board, OSK can crunch algorithms for imaging spectroscopy, doing its own leak detection in real time, there at the edge. Then, insights — like the type of leak at a GPS point, its size, and its urgency — can be viewed on a screen in real time by users of OSK’s Sigma Monitor platform.
“Previous industry-standard ways of detecting such issues were unreliable, as they used small aircraft and pilots looking out the window for leaks, depending on the trained eye rather than sensors or other technologies,” said Bangalore.
OSK’s GHOSts can perform the same work a pilot would, but much more quickly, objectively and with higher accuracy, he added.
In 2018, OSK’s previous-generation system was launched on the International Space Station. That system did its analysis using the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 module. For the current generation, OSK uses its own microsatellites, powered by the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin module. There’s also an aerial version of the platform that collects hyperspectral imagery from airplanes in flight. It’s a lot like how Perseverance uses its own highly sensitive cameras to tell which rocks are made of which minerals. And I’ll bet you a nickel that this tech is how starships in science fiction would actually scan planets and celestial bodies.
Better, Faster, Stronger
Right now, OSK’s mission is to orbit the Earth using its ‘hyperspectral intelligence’ to detect hydrocarbon or gas leaks. Thus far, it has detected hundreds of methane or liquid hydrocarbon leaks, and more than 300 “intrusive events” related to digging or construction activities, said OSK founder and chief operating officer Tushar Prabhakar.
“With Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier, we can process all the data taken onboard a satellite in an orbit within that same orbit, enabling continuous data capture.”
The system uses the Nvidia CV-CUDA and CUDA Python software toolkits to accelerate the platform’s data processing. And as you might imagine, it’s a lot of data.
“The biggest challenge with hyperspectral imagery,” said Bangalore, “is dealing with huge amounts of data, which can be up to 400x the size of 2D visual data.”
Naturally, with their ultra-fine imaging, the US Department of Defense is keenly interested in what the GHOSts can do. But the satellites mostly spend their time trying to keep pipeline accidents from turning into full-blown energy crises. Ultimately, OSK hopes to use its satellites for a safer, sustainable future.
“We’re taking hyperspectral intelligence to the finest commercial resolution that the world has ever seen to make the Earth a more sustainable place,” Bangalore said. “Our tech can help discover lithium, and prevent methane or greenhouse gasses from being let out into the atmosphere…It’s a very direct impact, and it’s what the planet needs.”
*(X, Y, Z) stands for latitude, longitude, and altitude. It is also written as (x,y,λ), in the context of 3D spectral analysis.
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