# Orbital Sidekick
*commercial . companies*

US commercial hyperspectral Earth-observation company headquartered in San Francisco. Operates the GHOSt (Global Hyperspectral Observation Satellite) constellation of six technically identical microsatellites carrying a VIS-SWIR hyperspectral imager (512 bands, 8.3 m multispectral GSD, 3 m panchromatic). Defence-adjacent business model: contracts with US DoD, USAF, Space Force, and the NRO Strategic Commercial Enhancements (SCE) programme, plus commercial energy-infrastructure and mining buyers. In-Q-Tel backed. SIGMA (Spectral Intelligence Global Monitoring Application) is the customer-facing tasking, archive, and analytics platform on top of GHOSt acquisitions. Heritage from the HEIST ISS-hosted hyperspectral instrument (2019) and the Aurora precursor satellite, with GHOSt payloads built proprietary to OSK on Astro Digital Corvus-XL platforms.

## Specifications
- **country**: United States
- **website**: https://www.orbitalsidekick.com
- **operator domains**: ["orbitalsidekick.com"]
- **founded year**: 2016
- **last verified date**: 2026-05-24
- **verified by**: sw
- **claim status**: unclaimed

## Editorial
Orbital Sidekick (OSK) is a US commercial hyperspectral Earth-observation company founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Francisco. OSK operates the GHOSt (Global Hyperspectral Observation Satellite) constellation, comprising six microsatellites carrying a proprietary VIS-SWIR hyperspectral imager across a 400-2500 nm range from a 525 km sun-synchronous orbit. The first two satellites (GHOSt-1 and GHOSt-2) launched April 2023 on a SpaceX Transporter-7 rideshare, followed by GHOSt-3 in June 2023 and GHOSt-4 and GHOSt-5 in March 2024. All five are operational as of 2026-05-24; a sixth satellite (GHOSt-6) had not yet launched as of that date. Each satellite is built on the Corvus-XL smallsat platform by Astro Digital and masses approximately 91 kg.[^eoportal-ghost]

The GHOSt payload resolves 512 contiguous spectral bands (GHOSt 1-3) or 468 bands (GHOSt 4-5, advanced focal plane variant) at 8.3 m multispectral GSD and 3 m panchromatic GSD.[^eoportal-ghost][^osk-spie-2024] This spectral resolution enables material discrimination across the SWIR diagnostic window (2100-2500 nm), including clay, carbonate, and sulphate mineral signatures relevant to mining exploration, as well as hydrocarbon absorption features used for pipeline corrosion and seep detection.

The SIGMA (Spectral Intelligence Global Monitoring Application) platform is OSK's commercial interface to the GHOSt archive: customers contract for tasked acquisitions, archive search, automated change-detection alerts, and processed spectral analytics. Primary commercial markets are oil and gas pipeline integrity monitoring, methane mapping, and mining and mineral exploration. OSK also holds a $16M multi-year STRATFI contract with the US Department of the Air Force (via AFVentures), and is backed by In-Q-Tel, the US government-linked CVC.[^eoportal-ghost]

GHOSt's constellation approach distinguishes OSK from single-satellite hyperspectral operators: five operational satellites enable tasking flexibility and temporal change detection that a single demonstrator cannot support. The closest commercial comparables are Pixxel (Firefly constellation, also VIS-SWIR but smaller GSD) and SatVu (thermal, different spectral domain). GHGSat targets methane specifically with narrower spectral precision; OSK covers a broader SWIR palette suited to mineralogy and infrastructure monitoring.

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Source: https://eo-atlas.org/companies/orbital-sidekick
Maintainer: SpectraWorks B.V. (CC-BY 4.0)