The recent decision by OPEC+ members to extend production cuts underscores their concern over the strength of market fundamentals, evidenced by the increase in global crude oil inventories.

At the June 2 meeting, OPEC+ was widely expected to maintain its policy of reducing supply to support oil prices. 

After a steady rise in the first quarter of 2024, oil prices have been stuck in a tight range the last few weeks without a clear narrative to provide direction.

There has been no shortage of stories involving geopolitics, OPEC+ policy, US sanctions, interest rates and China’s economy, but collectively the signals are mixed.

This marks a turnaround from the rally that defined the first three months of the year.

As Southern California battles relentless drought, an onslaught of winter rains have brought forth a new problem. The region experienced its wettest day on record as almost a foot of rain fell between January 8th and January 9th.

As we look ahead to 2023, it’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on the last 12 months and highlight the steps we have made toward achieving our company goal of building a comprehensive, accessible suite of global monitoring products.

While it’s impossible to know what events will unfold next year, we know that having the ability to monitor certain areas of the world will help improve lives and the planet. 

Ursa Space’s solution gives customers the ability to monitor global economic trends with data derived from satellite imagery, updated on a weekly basis.

If you frequent the /platform">Ursa Platform, you’ve probably noticed our SAR image counter. Each week, this number ticks higher and higher as we receive imagery from around the globe, collected by data partners in our Virtual Constellation.

Today we celebrate an important milestone – exceeding 10 million SAR images in our virtual database. With such a large image database from multiple sources all under one roof, our growing database offers the end-user a one-stop source for all their imagery and tasking needs.

The diversity of SAR applications means the list of use cases is quite extensive. There might even be examples you’re not familiar with yet.

Through our previous work, we demonstrated how SAR can provide ground-truth information–across a range of fields–not available elsewhere.

But those cases just scratched the surface. Let’s take another look at this topic, inspired by March Madness, an annual rite of passage familiar to our US audience.

/blog/faq-what-is-sar">satellite radar imagery.

On January 24, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station carrying 143 small satellites, a record for a single launch, and the company’s first dedicated “rideshare” mission.

The same mission deployed six synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites into orbit, marking another milestone in the growth of the SAR industry.