exactEarth Announces Successful Launch of the ESAIL Microsatellite

exactEarth, a provider of Satellite-AIS data services, announces the successful launch of the ESAIL microsatellite. Developed under ESA’s ARTES Partnership Project for global ship tracking, the ESAIL satellite was launched September 3rd onboard the Arianespace Vega (VV16) flight, from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The satellite will undergo commissioning testing over the next few months and then will be brought into service to provide advanced high-performance vessel detection and tracking capability as part of exactEarth’s global constellation of more than 70 high performance automatic identification system (AIS) satellites providing real time monitoring of the global shipping fleet. VV16 is Arianespace’s first Vega Small Spacecraft Mission Service (SSMS) rideshare flight that injected a total of 53 satellites into orbit. At approximately 52 minutes after launch, ESAIL was released into a sun-synchronous orbit with Local Time at Descending Node (LTDN) of 10:30 am at an altitude of 515 km. www.exactearth.com