Satellite services for agriculture
Agriculture is one of the fastest-growing applications of satellite data. The combination of Earth observation (EO) data for field monitoring, GNSS for precision machinery guidance, satellite IoT for remote sensor networks, and satellite broadband for farm connectivity is transforming how large-scale agriculture is managed — enabling precision farming practices that optimise inputs (water, fertiliser, pesticide) per square metre rather than per field.
Earth observation for crop monitoring
Multispectral satellite imagery is used to compute vegetation indices — NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), NDWI (Normalized Difference Water Index), EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) — that quantify crop health, biomass, and water stress across entire fields daily or weekly. Planet Labs' Dove constellation provides daily 3–5 m resolution multispectral imagery of all agricultural land on Earth. ESA Sentinel-2 provides free 10 m imagery on 5-day revisits. Downstream providers — Orbital Insight, Descartes Labs, Satellogic — build crop yield prediction models, drought early warning systems, and supply chain analytics products on top of this EO data.
Precision GNSS
Centimetre-accurate RTK GNSS (using ground reference station networks like Trimble RTX or Leica SmartNet) guides tractor steering systems, enabling machine passes with 2 cm repeatability across season — eliminating overlap waste and enabling controlled traffic farming. Satellite-based SBAS (WAAS, EGNOS) provides 1–3 m accuracy sufficient for spray boom section control and yield mapping without RTK infrastructure. GNSS-guided drone precision application of inputs is emerging as a major precision agriculture tool.