GHOSt
Orbital Sidekick
GHOSt is Orbital Sidekick's constellation of hyperspectral imaging microsatellites that persistently monitors Earth to detect chemical signatures such as pipeline leaks, contamination, and land-use change.
Key figurescomparable across the catalogue
- Mass
- 91.4 kg
Normalised to common units so this product can be compared with others in its category. The supplier's own wording is below.
As published by the supplier
- Spectral bands
- 500+ bands, 400-2,500 nm (VIS-SWIR)
- Hyperspectral ground sample distance
- 8 meters
- Panchromatic GSD
- 3 meters
- Satellite mass
- ~91.4 kg (ESPA-class microsatellite)
- Orbit altitude
- ~525 km, sun-synchronous
- Revisit rate
- Up to daily for priority sites
- Constellation size
- 6 satellites (initial), goal of 14-20 satellites long-term
- Satellite bus manufacturer
- Astro Digital
- Mission integration
- Maverick Space Systems
- Flight heritage
- GHOSt-1 & 2: 15 Apr 2023; GHOSt-3: 12 Jun 2023; GHOSt-4 & 5: 4 Mar 2024, all via SpaceX Transporter rideshare
About
GHOSt (Global Hyperspectral Observation Satellite) is Orbital Sidekick’s flagship hyperspectral Earth-observation satellite constellation, the first US-based commercial fleet of persistent space-based platforms equipped with hyperspectral sensors. Each ~91.4 kg ESPA-class microsatellite, built by Astro Digital with mission integration by Maverick Space Systems, carries a proprietary hyperspectral imager capturing 500+ narrow contiguous spectral bands across the visible-to-shortwave-infrared range, at 8 meter ground sample distance for hyperspectral imagery and 3 meter for panchromatic imagery. The satellites fly in sun-synchronous orbit at roughly 525 km altitude, enabling up to daily revisit for priority sites. Onboard and cloud-based AI/ML processing chemically ‘fingerprints’ materials, feeding OSK’s Spectral Intelligence analytics platform for real-time alerting. Primary target markets are energy and mining (pipeline integrity, methane and liquid hydrocarbon leak detection), agriculture and forestry, environmental monitoring, and defense and security. Flight heritage: GHOSt-1 and GHOSt-2 launched 15 April 2023, GHOSt-3 launched 12 June 2023, and GHOSt-4 and GHOSt-5 launched 4 March 2024, all via SpaceX Transporter rideshare missions, toward a planned six-satellite initial constellation.
Documentation
No public datasheet yet — request the datasheet / ICD from the supplier.