Greece has awarded a €60 million contract to Open Cosmos, a UK-based firm that combats climate change through satellite technology, to build seven satellites.

This will be the nation’s first flagship satellite project, named Optical Constellation.

In an effort to enhance public services, the Greek constellation’s satellites will gather data while in low Earth orbit. Use cases include everything from improving agricultural productivity to reducing marine pollution to offering new perspectives for the land registry.

A variety of equipment will be carried by the spacecraft to collect data on a daily basis. These include on-board artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to maximize efficiency, Internet-of-things (IoT) and Automatic Identification System (AIS) receivers, and high-resolution optical multispectral and hyperspectral cameras.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and complementary programs like the EU’s Copernicus Earth monitoring program will collaborate with the project.

The contract is a significant milestone for Open Cosmos, bringing it one step closer to its vision of OpenConstellation, a shared constellation, set to become the largest infrastructure of its kind in space. Following the contract, Greece will also join the global partnership.

Founded in 2015, Open Cosmos has emerged as a key player in the European space sector. Some of its missions include the development of the UK pathfinder satellite for the Atlantic Constellation and the establishment of a satellite constellation in Portugal. “Greece is making significant steps in space,” stated Dimitris Papastergiou, the nation’s Minister of Digital Governance.