HawkEye’s second cluster of RF satellites were deployed to orbit in January 2021. Photo: HawkEye 360

HawkEye 360 CEO John Serafini said Thursday that the radio frequency (RF) data and analytics firm’s newly launched next-generation satellites have enabled the company to secure more than $50 million in new contracts since the start of 2021.

The company’s formation-flying satellites are designed to detect, characterize, and geolocate devices such as radars and push-to-talk radios, which aim to produce actionable insights for national defense and homeland security operations, maritime domain awareness, environmental protection and other commercial applications.

Serafini didn’t name the specific customers, which could point to the nature of its new business being related to national security.

“HawkEye 360 is experiencing an exceptional year, with record growth in customer engagements and bookings,” said Serafini. “We’re building depth of customers across the United States, Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia, including transitioning from pilot programs into programs of record. We are rapidly launching satellites to have sufficient capacity to meet our rapidly growing backlog of customer demand. And our team has demonstrated resiliency even during the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. The company has been doubling revenue each year and we expect this year to be no different.”

In total, HawkEye 360 has launched six of these formation-flying satellites so far this year. It launched three “Cluster 2” satellites in January and an additional three more “Cluster 3” satellites in June. It also introduced its Mission Space platform for analysis of RF geospatial intelligence in February.

HawkEye 360 is scheduled to launch an additional 15 satellites in early 2022, which will put its total number of satellites at 30. The company said this would give its fleet an an average global revisit rate of about 30 minutes.