Australian company Kleos Space operates satellites for space-powered radio frequency (RF) reconnaissance to track ships, especially when vessels switch off their automatic identification system (AIS) units
Kleos’ existing 12 satellites track vessels using their radio transmissions, identifying their location and transmitting this to defence and government users.
During Q2 2022, the third cluster of four patrol-mission satellites was successfully deployed into orbit. Four more satellites, the first of Kleos’ observer mission constellation, are due to be placed into orbit on an upcoming SpaceX Transporter-6 launch H2 2022.
New funds will be used for additional constellation growth beyond the satellites already scheduled for launch.
“Funding enables us to respond to market needs and is clearly vital for future company growth,” said Kleos chief executive Andy Bowyer.
“We have secured a new and highly respected funding partner in PURE Asset Management, to help fund further satellite constellations and team expansion.”
Kleos has a growing cluster of government and commercial clients, including the US Navy, with a global pipeline of more than 260 government and commercial qualified deals, spanning defence departments, national security agencies, coastguards, sanctions agencies and data aggregators.
These use RF-based information and analytics to monitor vessels that have switched off AIS due to criminal or accidental reasons, such as evading sanctions, illegal fishing, smuggling or arms trading.
In Q2 2022, Kleos entered into a co-operative research and development agreement with the US Navy to test the capability of its RF geolocation data in realistic maritime scenarios, such as sanctions reporting, transhipment monitoring, resource management, smuggling and border control.
This agreement is the first phase of the Scout Experimentation Campaign and will contribute to the development and integration of technologies that allow for quicker vessel tracking and defence decisions.
In July, Kleos signed a non-exclusive channel partner agreement with Kongsberg Satellite Services for the delivery and integration of Kleos’ data within a larger dataset, complementing other intelligence sources.
“Data is the foundation of all decision making; our recent agreement with the US Navy is a great example of a government user engaging early with unique datasets to rapidly innovate with solutions for military challenges that facilitate quicker decision making,” said Mr Bowyer.
“Kleos’ RF geospatial data provides this value, enabling users to speed up decision making in time-critical, high-risk areas of conflict,” he said.
“Our engineers use our proprietary software and algorithms to analyse, process and extract ‘needles in the haystack’ from the radio noise our sensors collect.
“This intelligence assists in the detection of environmentally, economically and societally damaging human activity and empowers the ability to act.”
In July, Kleos appointed Dawn Harms to the board as a non-executive director and Alan Khalili as its new chief financial officer.
