Sentinel-2 view of east London on 13 August 2026, with the Thames winding past the City, Canary Wharf and the Royal Docks, and parched brown parks among the streets

What comes with every image

Buying satellite imagery has always meant trusting a stack of PDFs. Data Sphere turns the paperwork into something the platform enforces and records, so you can show your work.

London, 13 August 2026

The licence decides what you see

You sign one licence on Data Sphere, and controls what the platform will show you. If it only covers commercial use, only imagery allowed for commercial use will be shown. The platform will prioritise your compliance, so you don't have to.

Your licence agreement

Tier
Commercial
Data
30 cm optical, Sentinel-2
Signed
14 September 2026, electronically
Fingerprint
sha256 9f2c…a71e
  1. The agreement is signed12 scenes found
  2. Your entitlement is confirmed30 cm optical and Sentinel-2
  3. The use falls within your licence tier4 withheld
  4. The terms match the signed document8 shown

Results for your search

8 scenes licensed for commercial use, shown

4 scenes licensed only for other uses, withheld

An example.
The same checks run on every search and ensuring only compliant data reaches the basket or checkout.Hamburg, East Owainat, Cushing, Chuquicamata, Prague, the Danube delta, Almería, the Platte valley, Sossusvlei, Melbourne, Dunkirk and the Nile delta.

People check who gets restricted imagery

Commercial access needs a corporate email and a signed end-use statement. Government and defence access needs a named official contact and an export-controlled-data NDA, and goes through formal review with the supplier.

Access requestCommercial

  • Corporate emailprovided
  • Signed end-use statementsigned
  • Review by a personin progress

decisionafter our review

Access requestGovernment and defence

  • Named official contactprovided
  • Export-controlled-data NDAsigned
  • Formal review with the supplierin progress

decisionafter the supplier’s review

Two access requests, as a reviewer sees them. An example.

Every file carries its history

Each item carries a processing record: the supplier’s original scene, every step applied to it, the software that ran and when.

  1. Supplier’s scene
    supplier
    Copernicus
    scene
    T30TXQ, 19 Sep 2026
    acquired
    11:08 UTC
  2. Clipped to your area
    area
    1.8 km²
    step
    clip to boundary
    ran
    2 Oct 2026, 09:14
  3. Converted
    format
    Cloud-optimised GeoTIFF
    software
    gdal 3.9.2
    ran
    2 Oct 2026, 09:15
  4. Delivered
    file
    bordeaux_aoi.tif
    checksum
    sha256 3be1…09c4
    to
    your organisation
  5. Recorded
    event
    download
    licence
    LIC-0412
    logged
    2 Oct 2026, 09:16
An example processing record. Field names and values are illustrative. Bordeaux, 19 September 2026.
  • True colour B4 B3 B2
  • False colour B8 B4 B3
  • Vegetation index NDVI from B8 and B4

Valencia and the Albufera, 11 September 2026

The record follows every render

True colour, false colour or a vegetation index: each is drawn from the same item and keeps its processing record, so a figure built on an index still leads back to the scene.

Every action is recorded

Searches, orders, downloads and changes to who can see what are logged against the licence in force at the time.

Event log, licence LIC-0412
  1. 09:14:02searchLIC-0412Thames Barrier, last 30 days: 12 found, 4 withheld
  2. 09:15:10orderLIC-04122 scenes, quote accepted
  3. 09:16:47downloadLIC-0412item 7f3a…e1, GeoTIFF, 214 MB
  4. 09:31:05accessLIC-0412analyst added to the licence by an administrator
  5. 10:02:19searchLIC-0412Royal Docks, under 50 cm: 3 found
  6. 10:02:20refusedLIC-0412defence-only scene, outside the licence

Graded before you buy

The Quality Award grades how complete and consistent a scene’s metadata is, so you know what you’re getting before you pay.

Quality AwardGold

  • Valid STAC itemmet
  • Electro-Optical fieldsmet
  • View fieldsmet
  • Projection fieldsmissing, so not Platinum
  1. Bronze
  2. Silver
  3. Gold
  4. Platinum
  5. Diamond
An example scene, graded on its metadata alone.
GET /ds/searchSTAC, as each supplier answers
# Search every supplier in plain English
curl -G https://datasphere.astrodynamic.space/ds/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DS_TOKEN" \
  --data-urlencode q="Port of Rotterdam, under 50 cm, last 30 days" \
  -d limit=10

{"type": "FeatureCollection",
 "features": [
   21 STAC items, SuperView Neo, 30 to 50 cm
   16 STAC items, WorldView, 30 to 50 cm
   Sentinel-1 and -2 checked, nothing finer than 10 m
 ],
 "numberMatched": 37,
 "ds:search": {"complete": true}}

One API for all of it

Search in plain English, by drawn area or by shapefile. Results come back in STAC as each supplier answers, and AI agents can use the same search through our MCP server.

In testing

What we’re testing now and building next, so the evidence goes further.

  • Checks on every buyer Identity, sanctions and export screening before anyone can buy.
  • Your audit log, to download Every search, order and download, ready to hand to an auditor.
  • Evidence packs One sealed bundle per site or claim, with the imagery, its licence, its history and a seal anyone can check.
  • Ordering for your clients Consultancies and analytics firms order for named clients, and the licence and records go to the client.
  • Imagery in your GIS Stream what you’ve bought into QGIS, ArcGIS or the browser without downloading it.
  • More providers More radar, thermal and optical imagery is on the way.