Artist rendition of Orbital Micro Systems Microwave Sensor Satellite. Photo: Orbital Micro Systems

Orbital Micro Systems (OMS) revealed that data received from its payload on the IOD-1 GEMS satellite has proven the commercial viability of the company’s Earth Observation (EO) platform. OMS’ MINIRAD miniaturized passive microwave radiometer was deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) on July 3.

“Having proven the viability of our hardware and software, OMS is immediately ramping up production of our commercial platform which incorporates two MINIRAD instruments, providing additional data observation channels,” said William Hosack, CEO of OMS. “With the success of IOD-1 GEMS, the company is already executing on our government and commercial contracts to deliver actionable weather information, while expanding our capacity to provide analysis ready data (ARD) to global markets within minutes of observation.”

“This deployment marks a number of space industry ‘firsts’, including being the first commercially- funded passive microwave radiometer in space,” said Michael Hurowitz, chief technology officer of OMS. “We also employed the first 3D-printed feedhorn antenna for millimeter-wave radiometry in space – enabling significant reductions in cost and design-cycle time. In addition, MINIRAD has achieved the highest spatial resolution of any 118 GHz radiometer at a small fraction of the cost of government missions.”