Spy satellite maker Kleos Space — which is planning an ASX listing — is set to launch a $3.5 million “scouting mission” it says would be ideal for protecting Australia’s coastal borders.

Kleos last month raised $2.2 million in seed funding and is planning to raise another $11 million in an Initial Public Offering ahead of an expected ASX listing in May.

Backed by the Luxembourg government, Kleos plans to launch satellites that can locate and listen to mobile phones, satphones, maritime radio and “ships of undesirable users such as drugs and people smugglers, terrorists, pirates, illegal fishermen and those in need of search and rescue”.

Under the deal announced today, Nasdaq-listed GomSpace will pay Kelos $3.5 million to launch “Scouting Mission” — an Earth observation satellite system — early next year.

Scouting Mission will “globally gather geo-located radio transmission data that will be provided to users as a service to guard borders, protect assets and save lives.

“This type of data will be of significant importance and application for countries like Australia, who have large coastline borders, and are under the constant threat of drug and people smuggling, and activities such as illegal fishing,” the company says.

In announcing its partnership with GomSpace today, Kleos makes a point of assuring its data “will allow security agencies to better track and detect, as well as monitor, illegal vessels trying to enter Australian shores, and to protect Australia’s vast coastline”.

GomSpace, a Danish nanosat specialist, also has a strong Australian link, having secured a $75 million contract to launch 200 CubeSats by 2020 for ASX-listed Sky and Space.

Sky and Space is a British public company founded by Israeli Air Force jet fighter pilot Meir Moalem.

Kleos’s operations for the Scouting Mission will be carried out in Luxembourg.

Director Andy Bowyer said the company was “delighted to make this announcement and look forward to working with GomSpace as we progress towards the launch of the first satellite system in our Geolocation Intelligence Mission”.

 

This article first appeared on Business Insider Australia, Australia’s most popular business news website. Read the original article. Follow Business Insider on Facebook or Twitter.

 

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