Satellite
Spire's Lemur satellites are flexible platforms built to operate a variety of in-house or hosted payloads. It currently commercializes its platform on a “Space-as-a-Service” offering with aerospace and defence customers.[40]
Spire designs, builds, tests, and operates all its satellites in-house at its Glasgow offices. The company uses minimally adapted COTS electronics to reduce cost.[41] The satellites are placed in low Earth orbit and are scheduled to be retired and replaced every two to three years.[42][43]
Spire adheres to internationally recognized guidelines for disposal of old satellites.[44]
The company's satellites are multi-sensor. Data types such as Automatic Identification System (AIS) service are used for tracking sea vessels. This data is valuable for use in illegal fishing, trade monitoring, maritime domain awareness, insurance, asset tracking, search and rescue, and prevention of piracy, among others.[33] Spire's Sense product leveraging the company's AIS data set was officially launched in February 2019.[34]
The GNSS-RO weather payload measure temperature, pressure, among other key characteristics across a “slice” of the atmosphere, or "profile". These characteristics are highly valuable for public and private weather forecasters across the world as they strongly increase the forecasting capabilities of weather models.[25][27]
ADS-B sensors were launched in 2018 to permanently track aircraft across all skies. This data is getting increasingly regarded as the new standard for modern aviation as it enables air controllers and companies to constantly monitor aircraft across isolated areas and oceans which ground-based radars are not able to cover.[45]
In 2020, Spire announced its intention to add intersatellite links to its satellites, allowing for lower latency between data collection and delivery to a gateway site.[46]
