The Ocean’s Clean Power
March 13, 2024
Balancing Harvest
March 13, 2024

The Ocean
in Motion

The Suez Canal

Satellites are used to monitor shipping on one of the world’s most important waterways, the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean. The sea surface reflects the radar signal away from the satellite, which makes the water appear darker in the image. The dark waters contrast with metal objects, in this case the ships, which appear as bright dots in the somber expanse.

© Sentinel-1, Copernicus, ESA

TRAFFIC

Satellites reveal the dynamics of maritime traffic, helping to prevent accidents, pollution, and piracy. From trade to tourism, the mobility the ocean provides to people, goods and services has always been and will remain central to humanity’s progress.

This map shows nitrogen dioxide concentrations in 2023. Nitrogen dioxide caused by fossil fuel combustion pollutes the air.  Air pollution due to shipping can be identified along coastlines and on the main shipping routes. Out of the total global air emissions, shipping accounts for 18 to 30 percent of the ocean's nitrogen oxide.

Joanna Post

Director of the Global Ocean Observing System

UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
Paris, France

80% of goods and trade travel via our very vast ocean. This commerce has a huge impact on the ocean in terms of water, noise and air pollution, waste, warming, and also damage to biodiversity. The shift to smart shipping has become increasingly urgent to optimize shipping fleets and use satellite data to minimize the impact on ocean biodiversity.
John Lusk

CEO

Spire Maritime

Smart shipping is the integration of innovative technologies such as satellite data from space, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence to improve maritime operations. It utilizes the monitoring of ship performance and weather to help with better route optimization, lower emissions, and lower fuel consumption. By deploying a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites in space, we can utilize real time data to help track a number of different vessels on our ocean. We can keep them from entering protected areas and track and identify illicit activities such as illegal fishing.
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