A wartime plea to Western satellite companies: “We need this data, please”

During a 20-minute call with reporters on Monday evening, Max Polyakov was emotional and angry as he spoke about the attack by the Russian military on his homeland.

Polyakov pointed to his watch and said there would be an attack on Kyiv within an hour.

Commercial satellites made real-time observations over Ukraine. Polyakov asked the operators of the satellites to give his company access to their data, which was sold to governments and private customers.

The Ukrainian Defense Service and the Ministry of Digital Transformation would receive the data from the fast-processing EOS. He said that EOS has the ability to differentiate between different types of Russian military vehicles.

He said that they need this intelligence right now. We need this data.

Commercial companies have recently released high-resolution satellite imagery into the public domain to showcase their capabilities. He acknowledged that such releases have been more useful for public relations purposes than for the Ukrainian military. The data is usually two or three days old.

The need for a special kind of data that comes from synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, satellites has become more popular in recent years. In contrast to passive optical satellites that collect data in the visible and near-IR portions of the spectrum, these satellites emit their own energy. The energy reflected from the surface of Earth is recorded.

The main advantage of SAR satellites is that they can collect data at any time of the day or night. Polyakov said that clouds cover 80 percent of Ukraine during the day and that it's important to understand Russian troop and vehicle movements at night.

Polyakov is appealing to companies who can provide the needed data.

Polyakov acknowledged that he was making an aggressive request during the call. The 44-year-old was forced to sell his controlling interest in the US-based launch company Firefly because of his checkered relationship with US regulators. It is difficult to deny the passion he has for his homeland.

It is not clear how the companies will respond. This is the first major war in which commercially available satellite imagery has played a significant role in providing open source information about troop movements, military build ups in neighboring countries, flows of refugees, and more.

The data was mostly collected by a few nations. The role of such a powerful, widely available technology has yet to be defined in a warfighting domain, and it is not clear whether private companies are willing to freely hand over raw data to another commercial company with the intent of helping one side in the conflict.

We are about to find out.