ESAIL () is a microsatellite for AIS ship tracking operated by exactEarth. It is developed in cooperation with ESA.
exactEarth is a provider of global AIS (Automatic Identification System) maritime vessel data for ship tracking and maritime situational awareness solutions. The ESAIL satellite was supported by European Space Agency (ESA ? ESTEC) through the ARTES 21 SAT-AIS (SATellite Automatic Identification System) program, and was developed and built by a European manufacturing team led by the satellite prime contractor Luxspace.
The ESAIL microsatellite has a mass of 110 kg and features an enhanced multiple antenna-receiver configuration for global detection of AIS messages and high-resolution spectrum capture, which will enable the demonstration of advanced future services such as VDES (VHF Data Exchange System) message reception.
The ESAIL satellite will be launched in a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) at an altitude of 515 km on a Vega SSMS rideshare flight in 2020 from the Guiana Space Center, Europe?s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
After launch and commissioning, the ESAIL satellite will be integrated into exactEarth?s global constellation ? which currently consists of more than 60 high-performance maritime monitoring payloads.
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