exactEarth has received a contract from the Canadian Space Agency for space-based AIS data services of Canadian and global maritime traffic. The contract is initially valued at $498,000, though with extensions could climb to a maximum funding of $3 million over three years.
SB-AIS area of interest for the aggregate area of bodies of water adjacent to Canadian territory, referred to in the text as the Canadian Maritime Area of Interest (CMAOI; red area with diagonal lines). The extent of the CMAOI is as follows: along Parallel 36°N to 90°N and from Meridian 30°W to 155°W.. Credit Canadian Space Agency/Government of Canada.
While the contract is with the Canadian Space Agency, the space-based Automatic Identification System (AIS) data services exactEarth will provide will be used by many government departments.
The government defined its needs as follows in the request for proposals it issued earlier this year.
“In order to support the operational needs of government departments, the GC has a requirement for SB-AIS data services for monitoring of Canadian and global maritime traffic that can also be queried for historical tracking purposes. In accordance with the requirements stated in this Statement of Work (SoW), the Contractor must be capable of providing a service which detects AIS signals from Classes A and B ships located anywhere on Earth and of processing these signals into AIS messages usable by the GC. Through Task Authorization Requests (TARs), and on an as and when required basis, the GC’s requirement may also include ship position confirmation, additional connections and accounts, data format conversions, additional data, and AIS data reports and analyses.”