Kleos Scouting Mission artwork – source Kleos Space.

Luxembourg-based data-as-a-service company Kleos Space has been contracted to provide Radio Frequency (RF) geolocation intelligence data to the Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory‘s (SDL) Micro-Satellite Military Utility (MSMU) project in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

“Our satellites and our data will enhance defense capabilities when fused with other data sets in the Government environment, as well as providing timely monitoring of illegal fishing, oil embargoes and other illicit action that both damages our environment and hurts our economies,” Kleos Space Project Director Karyn Hayes-Ryan said in a statement issued May 19.

The MSMU Project will also help define how global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) enterprise programs execute operations and involve building infrastructure to enable machine intelligence, including automation, human-machine teaming, and ultimately, artificial intelligence.

The agreement with Kleos Space falls under a global Responsive Space Capabilities Memorandum of Understanding involving the Departments and Ministries of Defense of Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom, and the United States.

“We are seeing increasing demand for our global geolocation intelligence data, which will enhance the ISR capabilities of governments and commercial entities,” Kleos Space CEO Andy Bowyer commented.

Kleos’ scouting satellites are still in India waiting to be launched on an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) PSLV C49 rocket. The satellites were originally scheduled to launch in 2018 on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket and then moved to ISRO for a launch that was supposed to take place this past March.