For decades, climate action has focused on what happens on the ground:
power plants, forests, farms, cities, and supply chains.

Now the next phase of climate action is being built hundreds of kilometres above Earth.

A new layer of infrastructure is quietly taking shape. It doesn’t generate energy, grow food, or capture carbon directly. Without it, none of those efforts can scale with credibility.

Space is becoming climate infrastructure as measurement, verification, decision-making at planetary scale, and with options to reduce environmental impact through applications and industries moving from earth to space.   

At a global level, nearly every climate challenge shares the same bottleneck:

You can’t manage what you can’t see, measure, or verify… continuously.

Ground-based sensors are too slow, fragmented, and expensive to scale globally.
Self-reported data is inconsistent and often unverifiable.
Models without real-world inputs drift from reality.

Climate action didn’t stall because we lacked ambition or tools — it stalled because we lacked trustworthy, continuous data.

This is where space stops being optional.

Cue: 60 startups and scaleups driving the change

Where the first era of Earth observation was about images, the current era is about infrastructure.

Satellites are no longer passive observers. The Space x Climate stack is forming fast, by enabling:

Observation is no longer about snapshots, it’s about persistent awareness.

Satellites now capture data across visible, infrared, thermal, radar, and hyperspectral bands. AI and geospatial analytics turn these streams into real-time intelligence for climate, agriculture, forestry, and disaster management.

Why it matters: Space-based observation provides continuous, global coverage that ground sensors cannot. From emissions tracking to wildfire detection, this data layer enables decisions at planetary scale.

What’s hard: High-resolution, persistent coverage requires constellations, resilient data pipelines, and AI capable of processing petabytes in near real time.
All while dealing with clouds, weather, and orbital constraints.

Signals from the field:

“Instead of waiting for large events, operators can track patterns over weeks and months, identify chronically problematic equipment or fields, and redesign maintenance schedules or replacement programs around where leaks actually recur most often. This turns satellite data into a continuous performance-management tool: assets that show no anomalies can be inspected less often, while ‘hot’ sites automatically move up the priority list, reducing unnecessary truck rolls, focusing skilled staff where they matter most, and lowering both emissions and operating cost over time,” explains Daria Stepanova, CEO and Co-Founder at AIRMO

Measurement is becoming the backbone of climate credibility.

Raw satellite data is converted into quantified measurements of carbon stocks, emissions, land use, and environmental change. These metrics feed carbon markets, regulation, and climate risk models.

Why it matters: Without trusted measurement, climate pledges remain narratives. Measurement is the foundation of accountability — and SpaceTech makes it global and continuous.

What’s hard: Earth systems are noisy. Terrain, atmosphere, and vegetation introduce uncertainty. Regulatory-grade accuracy requires frequent revisits, advanced models, and constant ground-truth validation.

What’s happening now:

"Satellite imagery analytics plays a critical role in advancing transparency and traceability across agricultural supply chains, particularly for climate management. However, satellite data alone cannot deliver the comprehensive insights needed to drive meaningful environmental impact. Effective climate action requires the integration of multiple data sources—combining remote sensing with on-ground verification and farm-level data collection,” shares Yury Vasilkov, CEO at Gamaya. “At GAMAYA, we've learned that this fusion of datasets is what enables accurate monitoring, robust verification, and ultimately, actionable intelligence for sustainable agriculture. It's the convergence of these complementary data layers that unlocks real value for growers and the broader climate ecosystem."

This is where climate intelligence becomes operational power.

Satellite data is now embedded directly into platforms that guide investment, operations, and policy — from climate risk forecasting to infrastructure planning and capital allocation.

Why it matters: Data alone doesn’t move systems. Decisions do. SpaceTech reduces uncertainty, enabling faster, more confident action across governments, enterprises, and finance.

What’s hard: Low latency, predictive accuracy, and integration into existing workflows determine whether data informs decisions — or just reports on them.

What’s new and next:

“Using satellite data from providers like the European Space Agency or Planet, we can combine them into highly accurate deforestation alerts. A lot of companies stop there, but we realised that this doesn't ensure the insights actually get integrated into operations. This is why we go into the intelligence layer where we integrate the insights into operational planning, management and reporting of our clients,” Alexander Gunkel, Founder and Managing Director at Space4Good. He explains “In our case, this means having WhatsApp alerts sent directly to forest guards, reshaping patrolling routines, and setting up command and control centers for local teams.”

Satellites are becoming the planet’s early nervous system.

Dense satellite constellations combined with AI now deliver near-real-time insights on wildfires, floods, droughts, storms, and heat stress — triggering alerts and guiding intervention.

Why it matters: Climate risk is no longer theoretical. Speed determines impact. Space turns delayed awareness into early warning.

Latest breakthroughs:

The physical layer that makes it all possible.

None of this works without orbital infrastructure — satellites, launch systems, in-orbit services, and mission operations.

Why it matters: Lowering the cost and friction of access to orbit is what makes planetary-scale climate monitoring feasible.

“Space is the ultimate stress test. By engineering a rollable solar architecture that survives the vacuum, intense radiation, and extreme temperature swings of orbit, we are creating a blueprint for the most resilient energy solutions on Earth. If it can thrive in space, it can power our most challenging climates,” explains Dr. Guler Kocak, Founder & CEO of SPACELIS Space Technologies

“We are unlocking space-based solar power at scale. Our secret sauce is a hyper-modular 3D phased array that enables constant, wireless energy delivery to Earth with no moving parts. By leveraging robotics and plummeting launch costs, Space Solar will scale from an MVP within five years to GW-capacity within ten. This technology provides high-density, 24/7 baseload power that can be manufactured at scale, finally making space tech the 'no-regrets' backbone of our global energy transition,” adds David Homfray CTO of Space Solar

Who we’re watching:

From reimagining where manufacturing can happen to unlocking materials impossible to make on Earth, Joshua Western is engineering the future, one orbit at a time.

As CEO and co-founder of Space Forge, Josh is pioneering in-space manufacturing to produce next-generation semiconductors using the unique conditions of space. Since founding the company in 2018, he has grown Space Forge from a Bristol-based startup into a global materials leader operating across the UK, US, and EU, and the creator of the world’s first returnable, relaunchable in-space manufacturing platform.

Under his leadership, Space Forge has delivered a series of industry-firsts, including a record-breaking Series A, the launch of ForgeStar-1, the UK’s first in-space manufacturing satellite, and the UK and Europe’s first in-space manufacturing licence. Most recently, the company achieved a world-first in orbital semiconductor manufacturing through its Plasma technology.

We’ll hear from Joshua at HackSummit as he sits down for a fireside chat to reveal how these milestones position Space Forge at the forefront of a materials-first industrial revolution, designed in space, with transformative impact on Earth.

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