SSBV Aerospace and Technology Group (SSBV) and Spacemetric has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to develop and demonstrate a multi-purpose and real-time Ground Receiving and Processing Station.

The increasing demand for regional and direct-downlink Ground Receiving and Processing Stations (GRPS) and the importance of quick access to data, as well as the ability to support different satellites and sensors, fuelled the initiative for a full end-to-end solution based on the integration of products and systems from SSBV and Spacemetric.

Under the MOU, the integration of Spacemetric's Keystone Image Management System with the SSBV's Ground Station solution is foreseen. Thanks to this, the complete processing chain between RF data reception and the delivery of the satellite image can be optimised, providing near-real-time access to satellite imagery.

SSBV's Ground Station solutions are based on providing cost-efficient ways of data processing from RF/Antenna to Level-0 data, using innovative technology to achieve a highly integrated end product.

The Ground Station solutions cover multiple frequency bands and support simultaneous TTC operations and High-Speed data reception.

Spacemetric's Keystone Image Management System offers solutions that archive, catalogue, process and deliver digital images from a large number of satellite and airborne digital sensors. Very rapid access to data can be provided thanks to sophisticated treatment of metadata and highly parallel on-the-fly methods.

The products and capabilities of SSBV and Spacemetric are highly complementary and based on very similar design principles for data reception, metadata tagging and near real-time processing. This creates ideal circumstances for the optimisation and integration of these products into an end-to-end solution.

"The cooperation between our companies is a good example of how SSBV teams up with other highly-specialised partners with a similar view and capability, in order to provide customers with the best product possible.

The envisaged SSBV - Spacemetric collaboration allows both companies to explore full end-to-end solutions that can satisfy current and future market demands in a highly competitive way", said Pieter van Duijn, CEO of SSBV.

The SSBV ground Station in Noordwijk, The Netherlands is the first of the stations where the new solution will be implemented and demonstrated.

SSBV is a technology driven organisation, with Headquarters in the Netherlands, active in the domains of (aero)Space, Defence and Security, Remote Sensing and Monitoring and development of High-Tech Systems.

Spacemetric is an international group of companies, with offices in Sweden, the UK and The Netherlands, providing image management systems for satellite and airborne imagery, active in the domains of Earth Observation and Defence and Security.

Both companies are leaders in their respective fields of expertise. Through working together, they aim to achieve excellence in the satellite imagery solutions.