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TCarta is a marine remote sensing company.

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So what that means is
we specialize in using Earth observation

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data, such as satellites, in order to map

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and identify features
underneath the ocean.

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So we primarily specialize in coastal
areas, areas where the water is shallow.

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That's the most dynamic area,

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and it's also the area
where our technology works the best.

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TCarta, our primary products are going
to be satellite-derived bathymetry,

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which, if you think about topography,

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bathymetry is just topography
under the water.

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So basically elevation
or depth of the water.

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We use ICESat-2, primarily the ATL-03
geolocated photon data product.

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That's our primary input.

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Even though ICESat’s original mission
did not include bathymetry

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as one of its core sort of missions
and therefore data products,

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the 532-nanometer blue-green
laser is ideal for underwater mapping.

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And so there's been a lot of really good
pioneering research on that that we kind

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of took along with us to create our
the bathymetry product.

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After we've extracted bathymetry
point measurements of ICESat-2,

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we typically are integrating those
with a multispectral

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or hyperspectral satellite image.

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And that's what allows us to,
basically delineate

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continuous seafloor models from these kind
of disparate point data sets.

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And then we do have a large customer base
of commercial users.

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So things like,

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engineering firms, you know,
if they want to build a new hotel

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in an area where there's lots of
protected structures,

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such as reefs or seagrass patches,
having a seafloor classification model

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where they can develop their plan around
low impact

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decisions can be very valuable, as well
as quantifying volumetric change

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it might need to do in order
to build something like an island.

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There are many, many places in the world
that do not have sufficient in-situ data

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or depth measurements in order to
to calibrate and validate these models.

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You know, kind of one of the reasons
why we need to map these areas.

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And so having this data on its own
won't satisfy the requirement

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for having a continuous map of, say,
some really remote Pacific atoll,

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but having these point measurements,
and then extrapolating across what we call

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the image space or within the image
that we're using, it's really powerful.

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And, you know, some of these places,

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the last time anybody took a depth
measurement was Captain Cook.

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Our motivation, or TCarta’s
motivation, for joining

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ICESat-2’s Applied User Program
and mission

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was basically exactly
what I was talking about, is solving for

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that need
for measurements of the water column

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that are recent or accurate and cover
lots of different benthic types.

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You know, there's an insane
amount of Earth observation,

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multispectral imagery around the world,
from freely available data

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you know, Maxar commercial data,

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you know, Planet Labs, lots of, Airbus,
lots of commercial data as well.

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But if you don't have anything to kind of
confirm the results of your model

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or inform your model,
depending on the approach you take,

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it's really hard to convey to the end
users that this is a good product.

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It's also hard for us to have confidence
in our product as well.

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We already have seen a global impact
from using ICESat-2 data.

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So, I believe at this point,
we've donated over 250,000 square kilometers of

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coastal bathymetry to Seabed 2030,

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which is a Nippon Foundation
nonprofit effort.

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That's a really cool kind of amount,
kind of effort across the globe

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for lots of different hydrographic offices
and commercial agencies

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to procure and donate data to this effort
to map the seafloor,

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regardless of depth, to a certain accuracy
by 2030.

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And so using ICESat-2 informed data sets,
we have been able to donate

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a large quantity of data
to that effort, which is now made

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publicly available
at a 100-meter or 90-meter resolution.