$4B
NRO commercial imagery programme
EOCL over ten years with options; the 2026 request cut it by about a third
Setcoin Intelligence · Space Infrastructure · Earth Observation · Updated October 2026
Earth Observation and AI Analytics: What a Square Kilometre Is Worth
What is satellite data worth per square kilometre and per revisit, who pays for it, and does AI change who captures the value? Ninety-eight chapters on sensors, fleets, prices, government and commercial buyers, the operators, constellation economics, foundation models, sovereign deals, regulation and risk, built on company filings, contracts, public price lists and Setcoin's satellite catalogue analysis.
Open to everyone: the first 3 chapters in full, with exhibits and models; a free account adds their Excel models. Space subscription: all 101 chapters, every model and Excel file, 7-day free trial, then €199 a month. Already a reader? Sign in.
- Chapters
- 98 + 3 appendices · 180 min
- Interactive Models
- 5, with Excel
- Data
- Filings, contracts, price lists, satellite catalogue to 20 Oct 2026
- Figures As Of
- 22 October 2026
- $6/km²
- SkySat archive list price
- 57
- ICEYE SAR satellites
- ~2/3
- EO bought by governments
- 180 min
- Read, 98 chapters
In short
Satellite imagery is getting cheap and the money is moving elsewhere. Planet lists SkySat archive at $6 per square kilometre and Satellogic at $4; constellations collect far more than they sell. Value sits in guaranteed access (assured tasking at $40 and sovereign capacity deals) and in answers sold per asset or decision. Governments buy about two-thirds, and growth has moved from US intelligence, whose commercial imagery budget was cut in the 2026 request, to European and Asian defence. SAR leads: ICEYE reported over €250 million of 2025 revenue and raised at over €10 billion. Free data and AI foundation models make analytics cheaper, shifting margin to whoever owns the customer's decision.
01 · The answer
Pictures are cheap. Access and answers are not.
Imagery prices are falling at the low end. Planet lists SkySat archive (about 50 cm) at $6 per square kilometre and Satellogic its archive at $4; resellers quote 30 cm archive at about $17–26. On Setcoin's constellation model, a 30-satellite high-resolution fleet must sell about a fifth of what it collects just to cover its costs at those prices.
The money is in guaranteed access and in answers. Assured tasking lists at $40 per square kilometre, and sovereign deals, in which a government buys capacity or whole satellites, drove 2025–2026 growth at Planet ($116.1 million in one quarter, +58%), BlackSky (+50%, international +200%) and Satellogic (+259%).
Governments buy about two-thirds of commercial EO. Growth has moved from US intelligence, where the 2026 request cut the NRO's commercial imagery line from about $300 million to $200 million a year, to European and Asian defence: Germany's roughly €1.7 billion SAR constellation with Rheinmetall and ICEYE, Sweden, Poland, Japan.
Radar is the growth engine and AI the leveller. ICEYE has 57 SAR satellites in orbit and reported over €250 million of 2025 revenue. Free Sentinel data and foundation models such as AlphaEarth, Prithvi and Clay make analytics cheaper, so value moves to labelled history, accuracy and the customer's workflow.
The study, chapter by chapter
98 chapters + 3 appendices · 180 min · updated 2026-10-23
- Executive Summary and Reading Guide
- Method: from Pixels to Price per Square Kilometre and Value per Decision
- What Earth Observation Is: the Sensors
- A Short History of Commercial Earth Observation
- Resolution, Revisit and Latency: the Three Axes of Value
- Light, Clouds and the Physics of Optical Imaging
- The Fleet in Orbit: Setcoin's Satellite Catalogue Analysis
- Reading Fleet Claims: What "N Satellites" Really Means
- Revisit: the Constellation Arithmetic
- Collection Capacity: How Much a Satellite Can Image in a Day
- Price per Square Kilometre: the Price Ladder
- Case Study: From List Price to What a Buyer Really Pays
- Open Data as a Price Floor: Sentinel and Landsat
- Archives and the Value of History
- Market Size: Reconciling the Forecasts
- The Market Matrix: Sensors by Buyers
- Government Demand I: US Intelligence (NRO and NGA)
- US Civil Government Demand: NASA, NOAA, USDA, FEMA and Others
- Government Demand II: Defence Beyond the United States
- NATO and Multinational Buying
- Europe: Copernicus, IRIDE and the Push for Sovereign EO
- Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Other Allies
- Asia: China, Japan and India
- The Middle East, Africa and Latin America
- Commercial Demand: Agriculture
- Commercial Demand in Europe and the United States Compared
- Commercial Demand: Insurance and Finance
- Case Study: Flood Mapping in Hours
- Commercial Demand: Energy, Infrastructure and Mining
- Mapping, 3D, Construction and Real Estate
- Commercial Demand: Climate, Methane and Carbon
- Disasters and Humanitarian Response
- Maritime Domain Awareness and Dark Vessels
- Forestry, Land Use and Nature
- Water, Coasts and Oceans
- Ukraine as a Demand Shock
- Open-Source Intelligence, Journalism and Accountability
- Planet Labs: from Daily Pictures to Satellite Services
- Planet's Next Fleet: Pelican and Tanager
- BlackSky: Rapid Revisit and Sovereign Gen-3
- The Economics of Daily Global Imaging
- Vantor (Maxar Intelligence): the Incumbent
- Airbus and the European Incumbents
- ICEYE and the SAR Boom
- SAR for Buyers: Modes, Resolution and What Radar Can and Cannot Do
- The Other SAR Operators: Capella, Umbra, iQPS, Synspective and the Incumbents
- Commercial Weather and Atmospheric Data
- Other Optical Operators: Satellogic, Airbus, EarthDaily and the Field
- Aerial Imagery, Drones and Other Competitors
- Constellation Economics: What a Square Kilometre Costs to Produce
- Ground Truth, Labels and Accuracy
- The Analytics Value Chain: Who Captures the Money
- Change Detection: the Core Analytic
- AI Foundation Models for Earth Observation
- Case Study: Building an EO Analytics Product
- On-Board Processing and Edge AI
- Cloud, Compute and Storage Economics
- Data Platforms and Marketplaces
- A Setcoin Price Index for Satellite Imagery
- Pricing Models: Per Square Kilometre, Subscription, Capacity and Outcome
- Government-Built Proliferated Constellations: Competitor or Customer?
- Satellites-as-a-Service: Selling Constellations to Governments
- Contract Terms Buyers Should Negotiate
- Case Study: A Ministry Buys a Sovereign SAR Capability
- What Monitoring Costs a Buyer
- How Governments Evaluate EO Suppliers
- Government Share Stress Test
- Listed EO Companies Compared: Operating Metrics
- Regulation I: US Licensing, Shutter Control and Export
- Licensing Imagery for AI Training
- Regulation II: Europe, Privacy and Security Rules
- Spectrum for Earth Observation
- The Ground Segment: Downlink, Relays and Latency
- Orbital Congestion and Debris Risk for EO Fleets
- Launch and Supply Chain for EO Operators
- Consolidation and M&A
- Security of EO Systems: Cyber, Jamming and Counterspace Threats
- Capital Flows into Earth Observation
- The Technology Giants and Earth Observation
- Hyperspectral and Thermal: the New Sensors
- Europe's EO Start-up Ecosystem
- Very High Resolution and Very Low Orbit
- The Arctic: a Growing Theatre for Earth Observation
- RF Sensing and Signals Intelligence from Commercial Satellites
- Imaging Space from Space: Space Domain Awareness
- Scenarios to 2035
- Earth Observation in 2026 in Numbers
- Implications by Reader
- Earth Observation for Infrastructure Due Diligence
- Due-Diligence Checklist for an EO Company
- A Buyer's Procurement Playbook
- Risk Register
- The Defence-Led Path to 2030: a Narrative Scenario
- Signals to Watch and What Would Change Our View
- Setcoin's View in One Page
- Twenty Questions This Study Answers
- How Earth Observation Connects to the Rest of the Space Economy
- Methodology and Sources
- Appendix A: Operator Reference Table
- Appendix B: Glossary
- Appendix C: Model Reference Values
02 · The evidence
Four Numbers Behind the Market
€1.7B
Germany's sovereign SAR constellation
Rheinmetall–ICEYE joint venture; production from Q3 2026
$815M
Planet's backlog
About half due within twelve months; satellite services drive growth
Free
Sentinel-2 and Landsat imagery
10–30 m every few days: the price floor every paid product must beat
03 · The price ladder
What a Square Kilometre Costs
List prices per square kilometre in 2026, from free government data to assured tasking. Large buyers negotiate lower; minimum orders and cloud raise the effective price for small sites.
List price per km², 2026
$ per km²
Planet and Satellogic list prices as reported (Sep 2026); reseller guides for 30 cm.
Try the model
How often can a fleet see a place?
Sixteen agile optical satellites can look at a mid-latitude point about every four to five hours; one satellite about every three days; a 56-satellite SAR fleet about every hour. Add cloud to see how long you really wait for a clear optical image.
Interactive model
Revisit calculator: how often can a fleet see a place?
How many hours pass, on average, between opportunities to image a mid-latitude point, for a given fleet?
Scenarios
4.4 hAverage revisit
5.5Looks a day
70Satellites for hourly revisit
3Satellites for daily revisit
One VHR optical
16 agile optical
30 agile optical
Dove-class (102, nadir)
ICEYE-class SAR (56)
Your fleet
Average revisit in hours at mid-latitudes (log scale): reference fleets and yours
Show the calculation table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Area within reach per satellite per day (M km²) | 350.9 |
| Daylight factor | 0.5 |
| Average revisit (hours) | 4.36 |
| Expected wait for a clear look (hours) | 4.36 |
Sensitivity: which input moves the answer most
What moves “Average revisit” most: each input 20% lower (left of a pair) and 20% higher
Field of regard (pointing width)
Satellites
This is one of 5 interactive models in the report. The first 3 chapters of the report are open to everyone; a Space subscription, with a 7-day free trial, opens every model and its Excel file.
04 · Three findings
Where the Money Moves
From company results, government contracts and Setcoin's models, October 2026.
Sovereign
Governments buy satellites, not images
After a week in March 2025 when Ukraine lost access to US-licensed imagery, defence ministries bought capacity they control: Germany, Sweden, Poland, Japan and others.
SAR
Radar sees through cloud and night
ICEYE's 57 satellites, flood maps in hours for insurers, dark-ship detection for navies: SAR is the fastest-growing part of commercial EO.
Answers
AI moves value to the decision
On Setcoin's model, analytics margins are about 80% on free data and about 40% on $10/km² imagery. Owning the customer's workflow matters more than owning pixels.
Try the model
What must a square kilometre sell for?
A 30-satellite high-resolution fleet costs about $4.60 per square kilometre it collects and about $23 per square kilometre it sells at 20% utilisation. Switch to a sovereign deal, a SAR fleet or a monitoring fleet.
Interactive model
Constellation cost: what must a square kilometre sell for?
What does a fleet spend per square kilometre it sells, and how much of its collection must it sell to cover costs?
Scenarios
$22.83Cost per km² sold
$4.57Cost per km² collected
38.1%Share to sell at $12/km²
$100MAnnual cost
5% sold Below cost
10% sold Below cost
20% sold Below cost
40% sold Covers cost
60% sold Covers cost
80% sold Covers cost
Your fleet (20% sold)
Cost per km² sold by share of collection sold (log scale) · compare: $12/km²
Show the calculation table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual cost ($M) | 100 |
| Area collected a year (km²) | 21,900,000 |
| Area sold a year (km²) | 4,380,000 |
| Cost per km² collected ($) | 4.566 |
| Cost per km² sold ($) | 22.831 |
| Break-even share at the compared price | 38.1% |
Sensitivity: which input moves the answer most
What moves “Cost per km² sold” most: each input 20% lower (left of a pair) and 20% higher
Collection per satellite
Share of collection sold
Satellite life
Satellites
Satellite cost
Operations, ground and staff
Launch per satellite
This is one of 5 interactive models in the report. The first 3 chapters of the report are open to everyone; a Space subscription, with a 7-day free trial, opens every model and its Excel file.
05 · Who operates it
Where Earth Observation Is Run
Operators, government programmes and a key polar ground station. Ringed: the largest fleet in its class or a sovereign programme. Switch between world, North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Sovereign or largest fleet · hover or tap a site for detail
All 18 sites, by category
Optical operators
- Planet (San Francisco) ◎ — 115 Doves, 14 SkySat, 9 Pelican, 2 Tanager in orbit
- Vantor (Westminster, CO) — 30 cm WorldView and Legion (9)
- BlackSky (Herndon, VA) — 16 satellites; Gen-3 sovereign
- Airbus Defence and Space (Toulouse) — Pléiades Neo 30 cm, SPOT
- Satellogic (Montevideo / Buenos Aires) — ~70 cm, lowest list prices
- Chang Guang (Changchun) ◎ — Jilin-1, China's largest commercial fleet
- Pixxel (Bengaluru) — Hyperspectral
SAR and RF operators
- Capella (IonQ) (San Francisco) — SAR, 9 in orbit
- Umbra (Santa Barbara) — Very high resolution SAR, 5 in orbit
- HawkEye 360 (Herndon, VA) — RF geolocation, 39 in orbit
- ICEYE (Espoo) ◎ — Largest commercial SAR fleet, 57 in orbit
- Rheinmetall ICEYE plant (Neuss) ◎ — German sovereign SAR production from Q3 2026
- iQPS (Fukuoka) — SAR, 11 in orbit
- Synspective (Tokyo) — StriX SAR, 11 in orbit
- Spire (Vienna, VA / Luxembourg) — AIS, weather, RF; 96 in orbit
Government programmes and ground stations
- IRIDE / e-GEOS (Rome) ◎ — Italian constellation, 31 in orbit
- Copernicus (ESA ESRIN, Frascati) — Free Sentinel data
- Svalbard ground station (KSAT) — Downloads polar orbits on most passes
Company and agency statements; fleet counts from Setcoin's catalogue analysis, 20 Oct 2026.
Try the model
What if US intelligence buys less?
An illustrative $440 million company with 60% government revenue, 40% of it from US intelligence, still grows 17% after a 30% US cut if sovereign and commercial sales grow. Lose the US line with no growth elsewhere and revenue falls 24%.
Interactive model
Government share stress test
If US intelligence buys less, how much revenue does an EO company keep, given growth elsewhere?
Scenarios
$516MRevenue next year
+17.2%Change
$106MUS intelligence revenue this year
24.0%Revenue at risk if the US line ends
US intelligence: this year This year
US intelligence: next year Next year
Other government: this year This year
Other government: next year Next year
Commercial: this year This year
Commercial: next year Next year
$M: this year and next, by customer group
Show the calculation table
| Customer group | This year ($M) | Next year ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| US intelligence | 105.6 | 73.9 |
| Other government | 158.4 | 221.8 |
| Commercial | 176 | 220 |
| Total | 440 | 515.7 |
Sensitivity: which input moves the answer most
What moves “Revenue next year” most: each input 20% lower (left of a pair) and 20% higher
Revenue this year
US intelligence share of government revenue
Growth of other government revenue
Growth of commercial revenue
Government share of revenue
Cut to US intelligence revenue
This is one of 5 interactive models in the report. The first 3 chapters of the report are open to everyone; a Space subscription, with a 7-day free trial, opens every model and its Excel file.
06 · Signals to watch
The Next 24 Months
- 2026–2027US intelligence budget for commercial imageryWhether EOCL stabilises or keeps shrinking.
- From Q3 2026Germany's SAR satellites from NeussProof of the sovereign manufacturing model.
- 2027–2028Europe's EOGS: build or buyA federated service buying from industry, or government-owned satellites.
- 2026–2028Archive licences to AI developersThe first large deals would turn archives into a revenue line.
07 · Check it yourself
Test This Study Against the Live Record
Every figure here comes from filings, contracts and the public satellite catalogue. These Setcoin services let you check companies and projects yourself.
Setcoin Verify
Check a fleet claim
Satellites in the public catalogue, contracts, ownership, sanctions listings and court records on an EO company, in one cited report.
See what Verify checks →Setcoin Atlas
See what the ground shows
Infrastructure projects worldwide, with satellite change detection to check construction where registers are silent.
Open the Atlas →Capital Map
Who funds space and defence tech
Capital groups by sector, stage, structure and ticket size.
Explore Capital Map →08 · The full study
What's Inside
What EO is and costs
- Sensors, physics, history, the fleet and fleet claims
- Revisit, collection capacity and the price ladder
- Open data, archives, market size and the market matrix
Who buys and who sells
- US intelligence and civil agencies, sovereign defence, NATO, Europe, Asia, other regions
- Agriculture, insurance, energy, mapping, climate, disasters, maritime, forests, water
- Planet, BlackSky, Vantor, Airbus, ICEYE, other SAR and optical operators
Economics, AI and risk
- Constellation economics, the value chain, change detection and foundation models
- Pricing models, satellites-as-a-service, contract terms, buyer's cost, stress test
- Regulation, ground segment, supply, security, consolidation, scenarios, risks, signals
Coverage
Revisit calculator
How often a fleet can see a mid-latitude point, from satellites, pointing width and day or night sensing.
Economics
Constellation cost per km²
What a fleet spends per square kilometre it sells, and the share of collection it must sell at a given price.
Risk
Government share stress test
How an EO company's revenue responds to a cut in US intelligence purchases and growth elsewhere.
Free data tools
Check the live record yourself
The study's findings move with launches, contracts and filings. These free Setcoin tools show the current public record behind them, refreshed from the catalogues and procurement registers.
Free tool
Space Contracts & Tender Radar
607 new US federal space awards and European tenders from the last twelve months, by part or service bought, buyer, country and stage, with the tenders still open.
See which agencies are buying EO data and analytics, what they publish as value, and the tenders still open.
Open the radar →Free tool
Space Claim Check
Type an operator’s name and see what the public satellite catalogues record: satellites launched, in orbit, operating and re-entered. The full check adds US contracts, SBIR awards, UK and NOAA licences and list screening.
Check what the catalogues record for an EO operator’s fleet: launched, operating and re-entered satellites.
Check an operator →Questions
Questions About the Study, Answered
How much does satellite imagery cost per square kilometre?
Sentinel-2 and Landsat imagery is free. In 2026 Planet lists SkySat archive (about 50 cm) at $6 per square kilometre, flexible tasking at $12 and assured tasking at $40; Satellogic lists archive at $4. Resellers quote 30 cm archive at about $17–26 and tasking at about $25–55. Minimum orders, often 25 km², raise the effective price for small sites.
How big is the Earth observation market?
Published estimates for 2025 range from about $3.8 billion to $8 billion depending on what is counted. Setcoin's bottom-up estimate of satellite data plus first-level analytics is about $4.5–6 billion, of which governments buy about two-thirds. Setcoin's base case reaches about $13–17 billion by 2035.
Is the US cutting its purchases of commercial satellite imagery?
The FY2026 budget request proposed cutting the NRO's Electro-Optical Commercial Layer from about $300 million to about $200 million a year and zeroing a commercial radar line. Congress's intelligence committees moved to restore funding; final figures are classified.
Why are governments buying their own satellites?
For control in a crisis, speed and cost. In March 2025 Ukraine's access to US-licensed imagery was suspended for about a week. Since then Germany (about €1.7 billion with Rheinmetall and ICEYE), Sweden, Poland, Japan and others have bought satellites or dedicated capacity.
What is SAR and why is it growing?
Synthetic aperture radar images the ground with microwaves, through cloud and at night. It suits defence, maritime surveillance, flood mapping and ground-movement monitoring. ICEYE, the largest commercial SAR operator with 57 satellites in orbit, reported over €250 million of revenue in 2025.
How often can satellites image the same place?
On Setcoin's approximation, one agile optical satellite can look at a mid-latitude point about every three days, sixteen about every four to five hours, and a 56-satellite SAR fleet about every hour. Cloud lengthens the wait for a clear optical image.
How is AI changing satellite analytics?
Foundation models such as Google's AlphaEarth Foundations, NASA and IBM's Prithvi and Clay are pre-trained on large archives, so new tasks need far fewer labelled examples. That makes analytics cheaper to build and moves value to labelled history, accuracy and integration into customers' decisions.
What does it cost to monitor an area with satellites?
On Setcoin's model, monitoring 1,000 km² weekly costs about $104,000 a year with free Sentinel data plus analytics, about $172,000 with 3 m monitoring imagery, and about $915,000 with 50 cm flexible tasking.
How are Planet and BlackSky doing?
Planet reported $116.1 million of revenue in the quarter to 31 July 2026 (+58%), positive adjusted EBITDA and a backlog of about $815 million, guiding to $430–441 million for its fiscal year. BlackSky reported $33.3 million in the June 2026 quarter (+50%), with international revenue up 200%.
How do I read the full study?
The first three chapters are open to everyone in full, with no account; the rest can be previewed. A space sector subscription, with a free trial, opens all 98 chapters, the five interactive models and their Excel files.
Setcoin Research analyses public markets, filings and programmes for information only. It is not investment advice and does not recommend any security.
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