Monthly Noosphere Ventures Digest: Firefly Kickoff, Interview With Tom Markusic, EOS Change Detection, Civic Progress

We are pleased to publish first Monthly Noosphere Ventures Digest where you can discover the most exciting news and tips from Noosphere Ventures portfolio companies. Feel free to share this article with space tech and digital entrepreneurs and investors!

All Aboard FireFly rocket! 

Introducing the Dedicated Research and Education Accelerator Mission (DREAM), where you can have your ideas launched into space. Firefly is accepting open applications to add to its payload, approved payloads – whether a child’s drawing, a university science experiment or a startup company cube-sat – will hop on board for the low orbit launch.

And the best part?

Firefly offers these launch services absolutely free! Thanks to Max Polyakov and Firefly the competition is open for everyone! These sundry effects will be onboard for the Alpha’s inaugural launch on December 16 of this year.

Firefly will fund the launch through its primary commercial payload. According to CEO Tom Markusic, this totals roughly $2 billion in contracts and letters of interest as the company gears up for this opening launch.

Firefly is developing a family of launch and in-space vehicles and services to provide industry-leading affordability, convenience and reliability. But DREAM isn’t Firefly’s first pledge to STEM. Recently, Firefly has sparked interest by welcoming youth toFirefly Academy, the Base11 Challenge, and the Firefly International Rocket Event (FIRE). 

Spot the Difference with EOS

If you’ve ever wanted to monitor how your crops emerge on the fields or how a construction site changes between two or more time periods than you must check out the change detection feature of the LandViewer service created by EOS team.

LandViewer originally enabled analysis of satellite pictures (either uploaded by you or found on the platform storage), by using different filters and spectral indexes (such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Soil Adjusted Vegetation, Atmospherically Resistant Vegetation and hundreds more). 

Recently, the LandViewer team launched a change detection function which compares the spatial representation of two points in time and measures differences in the selected variables. Essentially, it compares two satellite images taken at different times to see what changes occurred. Change detection has been widely used to assess deforestation, urban growth, the impact of natural disasters and to evaluate typical landscape transition over time, especially in areas with a rich amount of biodiversity and highly productive ecosystems.

To assist with navigating LandViewer’s web tools, EOS team has prepared Tips for improving satellite imagery search: most common use cases. 

Civic Steps Up with Payment and Identity Platform

The 17th Annual American Business Awards, U.S.A.’s superior business awards program, granted Civic a Gold Stevie Award for Startup of the Year. Civic impressed as an up and coming digital company transforming identity and payment.

Civic also announced their upcoming Civic Pay app that combines identity verification, payment, and rewards into a single transaction. Driven by automated retail, Civic brings blockchain innovation to age-gated products as well as improving customer experience. The Civic Pay app is a big step towards Civic’s larger vision: to give everyone a digital identity that they own and control. 

Ground Control to CEO Tom

Texas Monthly asked Tom Markusic, founder and CEO of Firefly Aerospace, how this venture differs from NASA, Blue Origin and other companies. The chat was casual, honest and sincere, and had a unique insight into NewSpace company life.

There is a clear, exciting energy in the FireFly offices. The giant Cedar Park building boasts a portrait of German rocketry pioneer Wernher von Braun covering one wall. In the back, a machine shop sees engineers turning out rocket engines and there’s a giant video screen streaming real-time feed from the company’s engine test site in Brigg.