HEO Robotics

HEO turns other operators' Earth observation satellites into inspection cameras. When a target spacecraft passes near a partner's imaging satellite, HEO's software tasks the camera to photograph it, then analyses the result: attitude, condition, what the object actually is. Will Crowe and Hiranya Jayakody founded it in Sydney in 2016 to prospect asteroids, pivoted in 2018 to photographing spacecraft with cameras already in orbit, and now also fly HEO's own cameras hosted on partner satellites.

The bet is speed. A dedicated inspection constellation takes years and serious capital; software plus existing satellites delivers imagery now. And the imagery is occasionally spectacular: the International Space Station photographed from 69 kilometres away, China's Tiangong station resolved by a BlackSky satellite under HEO tasking at 83 kilometres.

Governments have followed. In 2026 it was among the first winners of a new US National Reconnaissance Office commercial imagery contract, alongside defence customers in Australia and the UK, and BlackSky and Satellogic have signed their fleets into its sensor network. The constraint is built into the model: it depends on partners' orbits and goodwill, and a photograph only happens when a conjunction brings camera and target close, so timing and resolution are chance-limited. Its mission counts and network figures are its own, and the sovereign camera line is young, eight launched so far.