BlackSky Extends HEO Partnership, Adds Gen-3 Imagery to Sharpen Orbital Surveillance

BlackSky Technology has signed a seven-figure deal to extend its partnership with Australian non-Earth imaging provider HEO for another year. The renewal brings imagery from BlackSky's Gen-3 constellation into the arrangement, aimed at advancing low-latency space domain awareness as the two companies enter their third year of collaboration.

The partnership addresses a growing demand among operators to know not only where objects in orbit are located, but what they are doing. Ground-based radar and telescopes can track a satellite's position but are limited in the detail they can provide. HEO instead borrows time on cameras already in orbit to photograph other spacecraft up close, an approach the companies describe as non-Earth imaging.

The HEO-BlackSky relationship began as a short-term, six-figure pilot and has evolved into a seven-figure annual contract. Over the years the two companies have fully automated the tasking-to-delivery pipeline. HEO Inspect customers, which include international defense and commercial operators, can generate rapid analytics reports, identify satellite subsystems, flag anomalies, and map an object's pattern of life. BlackSky does not give up any Earth-imaging time, because HEO tasks the satellites when they would otherwise sit idle, such as over open ocean or on Earth's night side.

With Gen-3 satellites added to the mix, HEO customers gain sharper and more frequent looks at objects in orbit. Gen-3 delivers 35-cm imagery, up from Gen-2's one-meter resolution, revealing finer detail on satellite subsystems, damage, and configuration changes. HEO can now task BlackSky's full Gen-2 and Gen-3 fleet, increasing the opportunities to catch a target. Because BlackSky is still building out its Gen-3 fleet, HEO's pool of available cameras will keep growing without the company needing to build spacecraft of its own.

BlackSky CEO Brian O'Toole said the expanded deal reflects non-Earth imaging's evolution "from a specialized proof-of-concept, into a critical component of mainstream space domain awareness." The renewal comes weeks after HEO closed a $25M Series B to push its imaging network into geostationary orbit. HEO already operates more than 50 sensors on orbit through a mix of partner cameras and its own hosted payloads.

HEO CEO and cofounder Will Crowe tied the expanded access to the company's broader ambitions. "We are entering an era where we must inspect, understand and maintain the infrastructure we put in orbit," Crowe said. "That requires more frequent access to high-resolution imagery, without building a dedicated spacecraft for every mission."

Crowe said HEO plans to grow its network through new sensor deployments and additional satellite-operator partnerships, with the recent funding aimed at extending imaging coverage into geostationary orbit.