"BlackSky has demonstrated incredible, industry-leading speed for launch to on-orbit operations, completing commissioning for our first Gen-3 satellite a full month ahead of schedule," said Brian O'Toole, BlackSky CEO. "This pace of performance is a testament to our team's experience, quality, and rigor in design, production, and testing, providing BlackSky a significant advantage in scaling this service rapidly and reliably for our customers."

The Gen-3 satellite commissioning process begins immediately after deployment, including initial tracking, establishing first contact, and sequential activation of critical subsystems. This phase is followed by calibration of payloads, sensors, communications, and control systems, along with optimization of automated operations across the entire constellation-to-ground architecture. BlackSky's first Gen-3 satellite achieved early imagery capture within just five days and AI-enabled analytics within three weeks of launch.

"BlackSky has received overwhelmingly positive customer feedback on the early 35-centimeter high-resolution imagery. The detail in these samples allows users to observe features typically captured by higher resolution systems, such as sunroofs on cars or individual people and their shadows," O'Toole added. "This combination of high-resolution imagery and AI analytics significantly expands mission capabilities and shortens the time needed for complex analyses from days to mere minutes."

As the second Gen-3 unit undergoes final preparations, it is set to be shipped to Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand, for an anticipated Q2 launch. This upcoming launch is part of BlackSky's broader strategy to integrate high-cadence, very high-resolution 35-centimeter imagery into daily customer workflows later this year.

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