SAN FRANCISCO – Earth observation startup Albedo is expanding its staff and facilities in Colorado.
In preparation for launching its first satellite into very low Earth orbit to collect high resolution optical and thermal imagery in 2025, Albedo is hiring.
“We’ve gone from the low 20s at the beginning of the year to over 40 and we’re still growing,” Albedo CEO Topher Haddad told SpaceNews.
Albedo announced the opening June 8 of a Broomfield, Colorado, facility large enough to build three to four satellites simultaneously.
“Having a dedicated facility to build, assemble, integrate and test our satellites will give us more fine-grained control over our production schedule and the operational leverage to react faster to any and all challenges we may face,” Haddad said in a statement.
Progress Made
Albedo, founded in 2020, raised $48 million in a Series A funding round in 2022. The company has won two Small Business Innovation Research contracts valued at a $1.25 million apiece.
“I’m excited to see the tremendous progress that Albedo is making towards their quest to provide rapid delivery and accessibility to the highest resolution satellite imagery to date,” retired Vice Adm. Robert Sharp, former director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and a member of Albedo’s strategic advisory board, said in a statement. “The use cases for this type of capability are limitless and will greatly benefit humanity.”
Albedo plans to gather visible imagery with a resolution of 10 centimeters per pixel and thermal infrared imagery with a resolution of two meters per pixel. To make thermal imagery easier to analyze, Albedo will “sharpen” it by combining it with the visual imagery of the same location.
“There’s a lot of demand for the imagery that the satellites will collect,” Haddad said. “Once we have six satellites, we’ll have daily revisit. That will be a big milestone for the constellation.”
Albedo also unveiled a new website June 8.