Land surface temperature data from constellr. Photo: constellr

constellr will play a key role in Germany’s fight against climate change. It has signed a new contract with the German Space Agency DLR to provide the agency’s community in Earth observation (EO) research with access to its high-resolution thermal data at 30-meter native resolution. The company announced the deal, Dec. 9.

The data, which is provided by constellr’s satellites, will enable researchers to analyze crop health, understand urban heat islands, and study climate change impacts. This can be applied across fields including food security, urban and infrastructure planning, and climate resilience.

The German Space Agency’s decision to partner with constellr could be seen as a validation of thermal imaging technology in solving national and global challenges. constellr was founded in Freiburg, Germany, by a team of scientists and engineers. It launched its first thermal infrared sensor to the International Space Station in 2022. HiVE, the company’s fully commercial satellite network, is set to launch in 2025.

“We are convinced that constellr’s data offer will fill a missing gap, that we still face today in understanding important elements of our earth system, e.g. vegetation growth and heat fluxes. In this context, we are very happy to partner with constellr and offer scientists and application developers in Germany through our data contract the opportunity to explore and demonstrate the potential of the data for new and innovative applications in various fields,” Godela Roßner, head of Earth Observation at the German Space Agency at DLR,  said in a statement.