HEO Robotics Launches New In-Orbit Flyby Inspection Technology: HEO Inspect

Our friends at HEO Robotics gave a fantastic presentation last night to 150 invitees from the space industry. The event was held at a cool bar and presentation room in Sydney to launch the company's new satellite inspection product - HEO Inspect.

The CEO and Co-Founder William Crowe gave an engaging overview of the current state of lower earth orbit and its increasing problem of space junk and lack of good identification systems. The US DoD’s SpaceTrack has listed over 300 large pieces of unidentified objects in orbit. Not to mention the tens of thousands of other pieces of debris in orbit.

Much of this is tracked using ground-based sensors, however not much detail is known. Are they debris or functioning satellites? How big are they? And do they pose a risk to surrounding satellites?

Enter HEO Robotics - their 33 cameras are orbiting the planet and catching photographs to identify this space junk. On top of that the cameras and Inspect software platform are conducting visual inspections of customers’ satellites. All at breakneck speeds of 54,000 km/hr.

The Sydney startup is now on a trajectory to reach 2400 cameras in orbit along with their Aussie-made hi res cameras.

William launched and demoed the HEO Inspect software platform to the audience, including sending a request to its camera satellite for a live photo capture of the ISS. To view this as a commercial client would, Space Lover Store were provided with a free 'demo' account.

Here's a shot of our slick dashboard layout, including latest reports, photos, search and MyHEO private requests and inspections.

 
And here's a screen of the ISS photography and report that we saw requested at the event demo.

Yes, the launch event was all recorded! You can watch it right here...

We look forward to plenty of new updates from HEO Robotics in the future. In the meantime we'll see if we can get HEO Inspect added as one of our special gifts for space enthusiasts 🚀 😄 📸

 Check out our Satellite T-Shirt here.