Brittany-based company Unseenlabs has launched its seventh satellite to monitor so-called "dark ships" – which prefer to go under the radar – from space, boosting the fight against illegal fishing, drug trafficking and marine pollution.
The BRO-7 satellite was put into low orbit on Tuesday by Rocket Lab's Electron mini rocket fired from New Zealand. The deployment comes a month after BRO-6 was launched by SpaceX's Falcon 9.
Unseenlabs uses this constellation of small satellites to detect and locate the source of commercial radiofrequency (RF) signals from ships, even if they have turned off their AIS (automatic identification system) transponders.
The RF signals come from a wide range of emitters – anything from VHF push-to-talk radios to AIS beacons, satellite mobile communications, maritime radar transmissions.
The constellation is designed to provide data on maritime traffic.
"We are able to track any ship, anywhere, anytime," the Unseenlabs website says.
And that includes rogue activities.
Vessels involved in illegal fishing, human trafficking and smuggling, for example, will turn off their AIS signals to hide their positions. But as soon as they plug in the AIS, for whatever reason, the name can be picked up and then associated with an electromagnetic signature.
"We can characterise the emissions; that's to say apply a unique signature to each vessel," says Clément Galic, president of Unseenlabs, which he co-founded with brothers Jonathan and Benjamin in 2015.
"This makes it possible to track their trajectory," he told AFP.
The satellites in orbit, which allow for location accuracy of 1-5 kilometres, already cover the whole world, Galic explains, so it's a matter of increasing the frequency of "acquisitions" when passing over areas of interest.
"In two acquisitions at most, we can see everything that happens in the Mediterranean," he says.
"Radiofrequency is the first layer of analysis for maritime surveillance. We have an exhaustive vision of a very large area: 100 to 1,000 times larger than an optical satellite."
Successful launch!! Last night, we launched our seventh BRO satellite with @RocketLab. We are delighted to extend once again our constellation dedicated to vessels geolocation from space. Already three successful satellite launches since the beginning of 2022! 🛰️🛰️🛰️ pic.twitter.com/4ahG8JGGU4
— Unseenlabs (@UnseenLabs) May 3, 2022
Juicy market
Unseenlabs was created in Rennes, Brittany, in 2015 and started getting financing from the French Ministry of Defence in 2018 via its Definvest fund.
The firm says it owns the world's "most developed fleet of independent satellites for detecting RF signals".
It's raised €27.5 million and more than half of its business is international, serving both the public and private sector.
Its 2021 turnover was more than €5 million. Forecasts for this year are double that.
"What I would like is a few more French public orders," Clément Galic said, highlighting the €1.5 billion provided for aerospace in the government's €100 billion Covid recovery package.
Unseenlabs has increased its workforce from 10 to 35 in 18 months and hopes to have a dozen satellites in orbit by the end of the year, and up to 20 satellites by 2025.
"The aim is to achieve an almost permanent maritime surveillance of RF activities worldwide," co-founder Jonathan Galic said.
The rapidly expanding RF market is valued at between €2bn and €4bn for the maritime sector.
Launcher shortage
Unseenlabs's only US rival is HawkEye 360, but the French firm's ambitions are "dependent on the availability of launchers", Clément Galic told La Tribune business daily.
"With the current crisis, it's not a given, but we are ready. We hope to accelerate but it's not going as fast as we would like," he said.
Unseenlabs works with American aerospace manufacturers SpaceX and Rocket Lab, but also France's Arianespace – the world's first commercial launch service provider established in 1980.
Arianespace is going through a difficult period, heavily impacted by the war in Ukraine.
The launch of Russian-built Soyuz rockets operated by Arianespace in Baïkonour has been suspended and production at Yuzhnoye – which manufactures engines for Europe's Vega and Vega C rockets in Dnipro, Ukraine – has also been halted.
Ariane 5, meanwhile, is due to be replaced by Ariane 6 by early next year.
Clément Galic says the firm wants to work more and more with Arianespace, and can't wait for Ariane 6 and Vega C to be operational, not least, as he told La Tribune, because launching satellites outside of France "is very complicated".
The brothers acknowledge that while Arianespace technology is good, it does not have enough launchers "to cover all our needs".
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