Open data programme supports broad hyperspectral imagery access

To accelerate testing and adoption of data for transformative applications, Canadian space data company Wyvern has launched its Open Data Program for the Earth observation community. Wyvern is recognized for its high-resolution commercial hyperspectral data.

The new Open Data Program provides free hyperspectral satellite imagery captured from Wyvern’s Dragonette hyperspectral satellite constellation under the flexible public release creative commons licence (CC BY 4.0). The licensing structure allows unrestricted access and use of the data, as long as attribution credit is provided to Wyvern.

The initial release of the Open Data Program contains 25 images of various land cover features – including forests, wildfire events, pivot and row crop fields, coastal bathymetry, open pit mines, solar farms and well sites – from across the globe. To ensure data scientists, students, researchers and other interested parties have simple access to hyperspectral data, these images can be accessed and downloaded directly from the Open Data Program website, with no signup required.

Problem-solving power of hyperspectral imagery

According to Adam O’Connor, chief product officer at Wyvern, the Open Data Program reflects the company’s commitment to foster innovation in the remote sensing community and demonstrate the power of hyperspectral imagery to help solve some of the most urgent global challenges. “We envision the Open Data Program as playing a crucial role in supporting our fellow humans in their time of greatest need by providing access to free Earth observation imagery for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions.”

Hyperspectral imaging also makes an essential contribution to environmental monitoring. Its ability to capture fine spectral details allows researchers, scientists and decision-makers to make in-depth assessments of ecosystems, natural resources and ecological changes. Because of this, an open data approach was a goal for Wyvern from the start, according to Callie Lissinna, co-founder of Wyvern: “Inspired especially by the open data philosophy of our friends at Umbra, we believe the geospatial community will collectively benefit from data providers like Wyvern sharing imagery freely. We created Wyvern to make Earth better from space, and we’re proud of how this Open Data Program contributes to that.”

Fourth satellite set for launch this year

Wyvern plans to continuously expand the Open Data Program as the Dragonette constellation collects more hyperspectral images of the world, including over areas of significant humanitarian events to support disaster relief and other applications. This will be especially possible thanks to Wyvern’s fourth Dragonette satellite – the Dragonette-004 – set for launching in the first half of this year.

Alongside the launch of the Open Data Program, the Wyvern Knowledge Centre has been updated to include tutorials related to working with Wyvern data in ENVI, QGIS, ArcGIS and others.  

To access the Open Data Program, visit opendata.wyvern.space