The UK arm of Finnish radar-satellite company ICEYE, which sells images of the Earth taken day or night through cloud to UK government, insurance and defence customers.
ICEYE operates what it calls the world's largest constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites. A SAR satellite sends down radio waves and measures what bounces back, which means it can make pictures of the ground at night and through cloud, rain and smoke. That matters for flood response, tracking ships, watching borders, monitoring forests and sea ice, and working out damage after a natural disaster. ICEYE sells the pictures themselves, finished reports built from them for insurers and governments, and whole satellite missions for countries that want their own satellites.
ICEYE began in 2014 as a spin-off from Aalto University in Finland, founded by Rafal Modrzewski and Pekka Laurila, who remain central to the company; Mr Modrzewski is chief executive. Its first satellite, ICEYE-X1, launched in 2018 and was the first radar satellite under 100 kilograms. Its website headline is 'Sovereign intelligence. From space.' and its stated mission is 'Faster decisions for a safer future.' The company says it now has more than 900 employees worldwide, according to Wikipedia.
The UK arm is registered as ICEYE Information Solutions UK Ltd, and is a member of UKspace, the UK space industry body. In February 2020 the British Association of Remote Sensing Companies (BARSC) announced that ICEYE had expanded its UK operations with offices in Guildford and Harwell, two of the main hubs of the UK space industry. Wikipedia currently lists a UK location in Bordon, Hampshire. The sources disagree, so we cannot say for certain where the UK team sits today. ICEYE's own UK page we could read lists no UK address, though it links to a carbon reduction plan for the UK entity, which is a document UK companies publish when they work with government.
Steve Young, then vice president of business development and sales, said in 2020 that joining BARSC was a chance to connect with other Earth observation firms. The UK jobs we found advertised include a UK Geospatial Intelligence Advisor and strategic account roles for European government customers, which suggests the UK team is mainly focused on explaining radar data to defence and government customers. We found no first-party description of UK culture, so we have not invented one. ICEYE's global material says it wants to make the impossible possible in New Space, which is the company's own phrase.
For someone interested in a space career, the kinds of work at ICEYE's UK arm include geospatial intelligence analysts who read radar images, account and sales managers, solution engineers who help customers use the data, and policy and partnership staff who deal with defence and government. Subjects such as geography, physics, maths, computing and international relations are all a good fit. Check iceye.com for the current UK set-up.
Website: www.iceye.com
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