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Risks and capability

Four Earth observation risk objects open the portfolio. Order carries no rank. Each is read across driver, exposure, vulnerability, capacity, cascade and consequence.

6 min read0 figures1 table25 notesNR-XTECH-EOGEO-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Earth observation is infrastructure and evidence
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
    1. 4.1 Risk objects
    2. 4.2 Capability ladder
  7. 5Continuity gap in public Earth observation data
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

4.1Risk objects

Each risk is read across the chain from hazard to consequence, with its status and evidence-quality level.

  1. InferredEQL 4RSK-XT19-INF-001

    Continuity gap in public data streams

    Driver
    pre-launch successor and funding stress42432
    Exposure
    users of free land and radar data
    Vulnerability
    single missions for some records
    Capacity
    overlapping missions and open terms267
    Cascade
    INF → DAT → CLI
    Horizon
    1 to 10 years

  2. InferredEQL 3RSK-XT19-GOV-002

    Navigation signal interference

    Driver
    rising GPS signal loss events2331
    Exposure
    aviation and services that depend on timing and location
    Vulnerability
    dependence on a single signal type
    Capacity
    reporting standards and backup navigation aids23
    Cascade
    TRD → INF → DAT
    Horizon
    1 to 5 years

  3. InferredEQL 3RSK-XT19-INF-003

    Crowded orbits and debris

    Driver
    growth in active payloads and fragmentation events15
    Exposure
    satellites in low orbits
    Vulnerability
    collision risk and loss of service
    Capacity
    tracking networks and re-entry practice15
    Cascade
    INF → DAT
    Horizon
    1 to 10 years

  4. Expert inputEQL 2RSK-XT19-DAT-004

    Unverified vendor claims in decisions

    Driver
    self-reported fleet counts and model performance182021
    Exposure
    planners comparing sources
    Vulnerability
    no common basis for counts or accuracy
    Capacity
    peer review and open benchmarks37
    Cascade
    DAT → FIN
    Horizon
    1 to 5 years

4.2Capability ladder

Existence is not readiness. Each of the fifteen capability functions is placed on the ladder by the strongest public evidence for Earth observation at the global level.

Table 4.1Capabilities on the ladder of evidence: listed, exists, demonstrated, tested
FunctionRungLevelStrongest public evidence at baseline
Prevention and mitigationEXISTSEASA and IATA mitigation plan and debris practices published1523
Monitoring and observationEXISTSpublic missions and open archives in operation256
Early warningLISTEDno consolidated early warning of mission loss or interference
Preparedness and planningEXISTSLandsat 10 planning and the EU programme441
Redundancy and reservesADEQUATEoverlapping land-imaging missions flying26
ResponseLISTEDno tested response to the loss of a mission
Continuity of critical servicesLISTEDcontinuity of data streams not documented in one place
RecoveryLISTEDnot applicable at baseline; no event to recover from
AdaptationEXISTScloud-native catalogues and open formats1617
Social protectionLISTEDnot applicable at baseline
Finance and insuranceEXISTSpublic appropriations and commercial revenue2426
Institutional coordinationEXISTSUN-GGIM, GCOS and standards bodies131725
Technical infrastructureEXISTSsatellites, archives and cloud access310
WorkforceLISTEDskills gaps reported; no figure bound
Research capacityADEQUATEstrong peer-reviewed base34353637
A capability listed in policy is not a tested one; each rung is the strongest public evidence at baseline.

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 4USGS (ed.), Landsat 10 (mission page; 26 spectral bands; 18-day revisit; 10 to 20 m and 60 m resolution; launch target 2031; draft request for proposal for the spacecraft on 18 May 2026). United States Geological Survey, Reston. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 24Planetary Society (ed.), You just saved NASA budget (analysis of H.R. 6938; Earth Science USD 2,153.0 million against USD 1,033.2 million requested; NASA Science USD 7.25 billion; House 8 January 2026, Senate 15 January 2026; signature awaited on the page). The Planetary Society, Pasadena. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 32UNVERIFIED, not opened: White House Office of Management and Budget (ed.), fiscal year 2026 budget request for NASA Earth science (cuts of more than 50%; more than 40 missions proposed for termination), taken from search-result summaries. Washington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 2USGS (ed.), Landsat 9 (mission page; launched 27 September 2021; 705 km sun-synchronous orbit; 16-day repeat cycle with an 8-day offset from Landsat 8; data at no charge). United States Geological Survey, Reston. Observation year 2021. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 6ESA (ed.), Sentinel-2 (mission page; 2A 23 June 2015, 2B 7 March 2017, 2C 5 September 2024; 13 bands; 10 m; 290 km swath; 5-day revisit). European Space Agency, Paris. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  6. 7European Commission (ed.), About Copernicus (Earth observation component of the EU space programme; six services; free and openly accessible; archived site). European Commission, Brussels. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  7. 23EASA (ed.), EASA and IATA publish comprehensive plan to mitigate GNSS interference (release of 18 June 2025; four workstreams; workshop of over 120 experts in May 2025; IATA reports 220% rise in GPS signal loss events from 2021 to 2024). European Union Aviation Safety Agency, Cologne. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  8. 31UNVERIFIED, not opened: Baltic and Nordic States submission to ICAO on GNSS interference (about 123,000 flights affected from January to April 2025; April figures differ across outlets), taken from trade-press summaries. International Civil Aviation Organization, Montreal. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  9. 15ESA (ed.), ESA Space Environment Report 2025 (web page of 1 April 2025; about 40,000 tracked objects; about 11,000 active payloads; estimated 1.2 million debris objects larger than 1 cm; data to end 2024). European Space Agency, Paris. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  10. 18Google DeepMind (ed.), AlphaEarth Foundations (blog post of 30 July 2025; 10 m embeddings; 24% lower error rate than models tested; over 1.4 trillion embedding footprints per year; vendor announcement, weak evidence, performance self-reported). Google DeepMind, London. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  11. 20ESA (ed.), ICEYE, Earth Online third party mission page (82 X-band SAR satellites launched for the ICEYE constellation as of 2026; constellation mean revisit at the equator 20 hours; access by accepted project proposal). European Space Agency, Frascati. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  12. 21ICEYE (ed.), ICEYE launches four new satellites aboard Transporter-17 (release; launch 7 July 2026; 76 satellites launched in total; up to 16 cm resolution claimed; vendor announcement, weak evidence). ICEYE, Espoo. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  13. 37UNVERIFIED, not opened: Gorelick, N. et al., Google Earth Engine: planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone, Remote Sensing of Environment 202, 18 to 27, 2017, cited from memory. Observation year 2017. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  14. 5NASA (ed.), NISAR mission overview (launched 30 July 2025 from India; 12-day coverage; average revisit about 6 days; 3 to 10 m; free and open data). National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  15. 41UNVERIFIED, not opened: European Parliament and Council, Regulation (EU) 2021/696 establishing the Union Space Programme, 2021, cited from memory; the legal text page returned no content. European Union, Brussels. Observation year 2021. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  16. 16STAC community (ed.), About STAC (SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog; open source community; Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence; no adoption figures on the page). Radiant Earth and contributors. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  17. 17OGC (ed.), About OGC (founded 1994; non-profit; more than 150 open geospatial standards stated; offices in Belgium and the United Kingdom). Open Geospatial Consortium, Wakefield. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  18. 26UNVERIFIED, not opened: Planet Labs PBC (ed.), fourth quarter and fiscal year 2026 results (revenue USD 307.7 million, up 26%; 40 satellites launched in the fiscal year), taken from search-result summaries; the release page returned an access error. Planet Labs, San Francisco. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  19. 13GCOS (ed.), Essential Climate Variables (list of 55 variables: 16 atmosphere, 20 land, 19 ocean; last updated 20 December 2024). World Meteorological Organization, Geneva. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  20. 25POST-CLOSE, context only: UN-GGIM (ed.), Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (sixteenth session 5 to 7 August 2026; 282 delegates from 80 Member States; Integrated Geospatial Information Framework; World Geospatial Information Congress planned 16 to 19 November 2026). United Nations, New York. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  21. 3USGS (ed.), Landsat Data Access (products free to download since 2008; Collection 2 available from commercial cloud with catalogue metadata). United States Geological Survey, Reston. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  22. 10ESA (ed.), Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, about page (free access through quotas for individual use; larger use on commercial terms). European Space Agency, Paris. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  23. 34UNVERIFIED, not opened: Wulder, M.A. et al., Opening the archive: how free data has enabled the science and monitoring promise of Landsat, Remote Sensing of Environment 122, 2 to 10, 2012, cited from memory. Observation year 2012. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  24. 35UNVERIFIED, not opened: Drusch, M. et al., Sentinel-2: ESA optical high-resolution mission for GMES operational services, Remote Sensing of Environment 120, 25 to 36, 2012, cited from memory. Observation year 2012. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  25. 36UNVERIFIED, not opened: Torres, R. et al., GMES Sentinel-1 mission, Remote Sensing of Environment 120, 9 to 24, 2012, cited from memory. Observation year 2012. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 4: Risks and capability. In Exponential Technology Report 2026: Earth Observation and Geospatial Intelligence (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-XTECH-EOGEO-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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