Pixxel

Overview

OPERATIONAL — six-satellite Phase 1 constellation flying

Technology

Firefly — In orbit: 6

Firefly — Mass: ~50 kg each

Firefly — Orbit: SSO 550 km

Firefly — Bands: 135 operational bands, 470–900 nm VNIR

Firefly — Gsd: ~5 m

Firefly — Swath: 40 km

Honeybee — Adds: SWIR — ~100 SWIR + ~160 VNIR bands at 5 m GSD

Honeybee — First launch: 2026 target

Aurora: No-code AI analytics platform with a growing library of ready-to-use models and indices

Band count correction: Marketing cites 250+ bands. The operational figure is 135. The company's own /firefly product spec is the authoritative reference.

Funding

Total raised: $95 million

Stage: Series B (extended). No Series C publicly announced as of mid-2026 despite market expectation of one during 2026.

History — $36M Series B led by Google, June 2023

History — $24M extension December 2024 (M&G Catalyst, Glade Brook, with Google, Radical Ventures, Lightspeed)

Contracts

NRO five-year hyperspectral data contract (2023)

NASA CSDA programme

NASA Earth science support contract (2024)

IN-SPACe EO-PPP consortium member

Research notes

Correction from v3: The claimed '$476 million NASA contract' does not exist. No primary source supports it. It appears to be an aggregator error that has propagated widely.

Direction: CEO Awais Ahmed publicly discussed building hyperspectral and infrared satellites for defence in May 2026 — a notable strategic shift.

Import provenance

Imported from IFSC Archive dataset v5.0, research snapshot 2026-08-16.