Payam Banazadeh
Earth imaging from space has existed for a while, but the satellites used in this have had several limitations. The traditional optical satellites could not provide clear images, especially at night and during cloudy weather, due to their dependence on external lighting. Earth’s imaging from space has been revolutionized by the innovation of Payam Banazadeh, the CEO and Founder of Capella Space, a Silicone Valley-backed venture. His invention of the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) was partially influenced by the disappearance of the Malaysian flight 370, which disappeared with no trace. To Payam, this should never have happened owing to the sophistication of the current technology.
Professionally, Payam Banazadeh is an Aerospace Engineer. He studied Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical Engineering at the University of Texas, Austin. Having interned at NASA, he received several awards for helping formulate new concepts and projects. At the end of his internship, he was the Lead Project System Engineer. Payam successfully led two multi-million dollar missions for NASA, which won him the admiration of his superiors. After leaving NASA, he co-founded Capella Space to provide earth’s imaging from space to shed light on different industries.
Capella Space recently launched Sequoia, a constellation of earth imaging satellites. The establishment aims at providing uninterrupted data of all activities on the earth’s surface. The satellites are already sending back signals to the company headquarters. Before establishing Capella, Payam was the Project Manager and flight systems Engineer at the NASA jet propulsion laboratory. Payam understood that the past uses of SAR satellites were cumbersome and required a whole constellation of satellites and a lot of funding. With his understanding of space technology, he had to develop a cost-friendly SAR satellite that was smaller and could be easily deployed to the earth’s orbit. Payam redesigned the SAR satellite, thus bringing his vision to reality.
