Critical infrastructure monitoring

Grid corridors, dams, ports and pipelines move, heat up and get encroached upon continuously. This mission puts systematic overhead watch on them, fusing InSAR, optical and thermal data into an operating picture that infrastructure owners can actually act on.

The dependence this ends: Inspection cycles that miss what happens between visits

The gap that costs lives and money

Most critical infrastructure is inspected on a cycle: quarterly, annually, after a significant weather event. Between those visits, the asset is essentially unobserved. A dam abutment can subside by centimetres before a crack becomes visible to a ground inspector. A pipeline right-of-way can be encroached upon by construction that is complete, and the damage done, before anyone with authority to stop it arrives. A substation can run hot for weeks before thermal stress causes a fault. None of this is hypothetical; it is the documented failure pattern behind the majority of infrastructure incidents investigated by national safety bodies.

The post-2022 environment has sharpened the stakes. Deliberate interference with critical infrastructure, including power grids, port facilities and fuel pipelines, has moved from a theoretical threat category to a documented operational one across multiple continents. An owner who relies on periodic inspection has no early-warning signal. An owner with a systematic overhead watch has a baseline, and deviations from it.

What the sensors actually see

Three measurement types do the work here, and none of them alone is sufficient. Synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) detects ground and structure motion at millimetre scale by comparing phase differences between repeat passes. C-band SAR is the workhorse: it penetrates cloud and operates day or night, making it reliable over the wet tropics and high-latitude winters where optical systems go dark for weeks. Published results from the European Ground Motion Service, which uses Sentinel-1 C-band data, demonstrate consistent detection of subsidence and uplift at infrastructure sites across the continent.

Thermal infrared imagery adds a different dimension. Electrical equipment running above its design temperature, pipeline leaks that alter surface thermal signatures, and anomalous heat at port facilities are all detectable from orbit. The physical limit is spatial resolution: current commercial thermal sensors from platforms such as Landsat 9 TIRS operate at around 100-metre resolution, which is adequate for identifying anomalous zones but not for pinpointing a specific cable joint. Multispectral optical imagery fills the encroachment detection role: vegetation clearing, new construction and access-road formation in protected corridors are visible at 1.5 to 5-metre resolution from commercially available platforms. The honest caveat is that optical and thermal both require cloud-free conditions, which is why SAR forms the backbone.

Fusing these three streams into a single operating picture requires in-country processing with defined latency targets. Raw data delivered to a ministry server two weeks after acquisition is not an operational tool. Processed change-detection alerts delivered within 24 to 48 hours of a satellite pass are.

The ambition ladder: from pilot to systematic watch

A pathfinder programme uses existing commercial and civil SAR data, primarily Sentinel-1 from ESA and commercial providers, combined with a small national optical or thermal payload, to establish ground-motion baselines and encroachment-detection workflows for a defined asset set. This is the right starting point for any government that does not yet have an internal team capable of interpreting interferometric products. The pathfinder produces something concrete: a calibrated baseline, a set of validated alert thresholds, and trained analysts. Small satellite missions of this class, including ground processing infrastructure, have publicly reported costs in the low to mid tens of millions of dollars depending on the number of assets covered and the processing architecture required.

An operational constellation adds national SAR capacity. Two to four C-band SAR satellites in complementary orbital planes can achieve revisit intervals of one to three days over a defined territory, independent of any foreign operator's scheduling decisions or shutter-control policies. This matters. Commercial SAR operators have demonstrated willingness to restrict data access over conflict-adjacent areas; a national asset removes that dependency entirely. Building a two-satellite C-band SAR constellation, including ground stations and a mission control capability, is a programme of four to six years from contract to operational status, based on comparable national programmes. It is not a fast solution. The pathfinder is.

What you own and what you should not expect

At pathfinder completion, the infrastructure owner holds: a calibrated ground-motion baseline for each enrolled asset, a validated change-detection processing chain running on national infrastructure, trained analyst staff, and full data rights including archive access. At constellation completion, the owner additionally holds the satellites, the ground stations, the mission control software, and the operator certifications.

The limits are worth stating plainly. InSAR requires coherent surface returns; loose soil, dense vegetation and water surfaces degrade coherence and can make motion detection unreliable in those specific zones. Thermal anomaly detection at 100-metre resolution will not identify a failing cable termination; it will identify a transformer bay running hot. Revisit at one to three days means a fast-moving encroachment event, say a contractor who clears a right-of-way over a weekend, may be detected after the fact rather than in time to prevent it. The system is a systematic early-warning capability, not a real-time surveillance system. Buyers who need real-time should be looking at ground-based sensor networks as the primary tool, with satellite providing the corroborating baseline.

Sovereignty terms and handover

Satellize structures infrastructure-monitoring contracts around the same sovereignty principles applied to its communications and observation programmes. Source-access terms for processing software are agreed before signature. Hardware audit rights apply throughout the build. Staged handover to national teams is the default, not an optional add-on.

The Tonga crop-estimation analytics programme is the public reference for how Satellize structures an analytics engagement: national data, national processing, national ownership of the derived products. The same architecture applies here. An infrastructure ministry should end the programme with an internal team that can run the system, interpret the outputs and commission new asset enrolments without returning to the original contractor.

What this mission is built from

InSAR mission configurations: Provides the ground-motion baseline and millimetre-scale deformation monitoring that forms the primary structural-health signal for dams, embankments and grid corridors.
C-band SAR payloads: Delivers cloud-penetrating, day-night SAR imagery as the backbone sensor, ensuring consistent coverage regardless of weather or season.
Thermal infrared imagers: Detects anomalous heat signatures at substations, pipeline routes and port facilities, flagging equipment stress before visible failure.
Multispectral imagers: Identifies encroachment events, vegetation clearing and unauthorised construction within protected infrastructure corridors.
In-country data processing: Runs change-detection, alert generation and data fusion on national infrastructure so that derived products never leave the owner's jurisdiction.

What you end up owning

Calibrated ground-motion baselines for each enrolled infrastructure asset, held in national data stores
Change-detection and alert-generation processing chain, licensed with source-access terms, running on nationally controlled servers
Trained national analyst team capable of interpreting InSAR, thermal and multispectral outputs independently
Full archive of satellite-derived observations for each asset, with no third-party access rights
At constellation tier: the satellites themselves, including hardware audit documentation and as-built records
At constellation tier: ground station infrastructure and mission control software, with operator certification for national staff

Handover is staged across the programme: processing workflows and analyst training transfer during the pathfinder phase, before any national satellite asset is operational. At constellation completion, Satellize hands over mission control authority to the national team under a defined acceptance procedure. Satellize retains no ongoing data access and no operational role unless separately contracted for specific technical support.

Programme parameters

Pathfinder phase duration	12 to 24 months from contract to operational alert capability
Constellation phase duration	4 to 6 years from contract to national SAR satellites operational, based on comparable programmes
Pathfinder satellite assets	Uses existing civil and commercial SAR data (e.g. Sentinel-1) plus one small national optical or thermal payload where procured
Constellation satellite count	2 to 4 C-band SAR satellites in complementary orbital planes
Revisit interval (constellation)	1 to 3 days over defined national territory
Ground motion detection threshold	Millimetre-scale deformation per year under good coherence conditions (dense vegetation and water surfaces reduce reliability)
Thermal detection resolution	Anomalous zone identification at approximately 100-metre resolution; not suitable for component-level fault localisation
Alert latency target	24 to 48 hours from satellite pass to processed change-detection alert, subject to processing architecture
Ground stations	1 primary national ground station; 1 backup recommended for operational resilience
Minimum national operator team	4 to 8 trained analysts and mission controllers for pathfinder; 10 to 20 for full constellation operations

Sources

One contract, one accountable engineer

Commissioned as one programme, not a stack of contracts: spacecraft, launch, ground segment, mission control, training and handover are priced together. Source-access terms and audit rights are agreed in writing before signature. Submit your asset list for scoping.