All maritime intelligence derived from Satellogic’s Merlin constellation will be delivered through Theia, pairing daily, one-meter-class imagery and co-collected AIS with the dark-vessel detection SynMax’s platform is already trusted for. The capability rolls out to government and commercial customers beginning in 2027.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SynMax, a multi-intelligence applied-AI company, today announced that all maritime intelligence derived from Satellogic Inc.’s (NASDAQ: SATL) Merlin constellation will be delivered exclusively through Theia, SynMax’s maritime intelligence platform. Designed to scan the planet daily at one-meter-class resolution with co-collected AIS, beginning with its first launch in October 2026, Merlin gives Theia a dedicated, high-frequency imagery pipeline purpose-built for maritime domain awareness. The capability rolls out to customers beginning in 2027 as the constellation builds out.
The ocean is the hardest domain to monitor. Vessels involved in illicit trade routinely disable or manipulate their AIS transponders to avoid detection, and because most maritime tracking depends on those signals, a vessel that goes dark effectively disappears. Theia was built for exactly this problem. It detects vessels directly from satellite imagery, finding ships whether or not they are broadcasting AIS. Bringing Merlin into Theia extends that capability across far more of the ocean, far more often, and in enough detail to detect and identify smaller vessels that lower-resolution systems miss.
That reach gives customers continuous maritime domain awareness, surfacing vessels that exhibit dark-fleet behavioral patterns, activity consistent with sanctioned trade, and indicators of illicit ship-to-ship transfers, both historically and in near real time. Because Merlin co-collects AIS alongside its imagery, Theia can correlate what a vessel broadcasts against what the imagery actually shows, exposing spoofing and identity mismatches that signal-only tracking cannot see. The result reaches analysts at a latency the market has not had before.
Taken together, the added reach, speed, and detail push maritime domain awareness from a reactive discipline, reconstructing where a vessel has already been, toward a proactive one, surfacing emerging activity and cueing a response while it still matters.
SynMax turns that imagery into answers through the approach that has made Theia trusted at sea: imagery first, then expert analysis, then machine learning and agentic AI, then proof a customer can act on. As Satellogic’s exclusive maritime partner, SynMax is the only provider delivering Merlin-derived maritime intelligence, and it runs through Theia.
The vessels that matter most are often the smallest and hardest to see: go-fast boats running narcotics, skiffs moving people across contested straits, and distant-water fishing fleets that operate as an instrument of the state. Theia follows these gray vessels over time and exposes the behavior that reveals their true control. With Merlin, that reach extends across far more of the ocean, separating state-backed gray-zone activity from the hundreds of thousands of legitimate commercial vessels around it.
For defense, intelligence, government, and commercial maritime customers, Theia delivers vessel monitoring, dark-fleet detection, sanctioned-trade analysis, IUU-fishing analysis, counter-narcotics and counter-trafficking support, and vessel behavioral profiling, with the ability to detect, attribute, characterize, and alert on activity across the world’s oceans.
“The ocean is where our adversaries go to hide. They run dark, spoof their signals, and count on no one watching every mile of open water,” said Eric Anderson, CEO of SynMax. “Theia takes that sanctuary away. It detects vessels from the imagery itself, whether or not they are broadcasting, and with Merlin, Theia will do so across more of the ocean, more often, and at higher resolution, catching the smaller vessels that used to slip through the gaps. That ends the era of reactive maritime awareness. Theia gives commanders the initiative, allowing decisive action against an emerging threat instead of reacting to it too late.”
“Merlin is the connected detection layer that anchors Satellogic’s Persistent Global Intelligence Infrastructure,” said Emiliano Kargieman, CEO and Co-Founder of Satellogic. “Adding Merlin data to the Theia platform will deliver a superior maritime solution for customers looking to find and flag changes across vast, broad areas and then cue other assets for high-resolution confirmation.”
SynMax and Satellogic are already integrating Merlin imagery into Theia ahead of the 2027 rollout, with additional milestones expected around the launch of the first Merlin satellite later this year.
About SynMax
SynMax is a multi-intelligence applied-AI analytics company that fuses satellite imagery, alternative data, applied AI, and subject matter expertise into decision-ready intelligence for defense, energy, commodity-trading, and intelligence customers worldwide. SynMax delivers the full data stack of broad-area satellite collection, machine learning models, agentic AI workflows, and expert analysts working in concert to turn observation into answers. The result is intelligence customers can act on, not raw data they are left to interpret on their own.
SynMax is used by the U.S. government and allied defense agencies for vessel monitoring, dark-fleet detection, and sanctioned-trade analysis as well as energy intelligence spanning oil and gas production, energy project construction and infrastructure monitoring, and commodity flows. Headquartered in Houston with offices in London and Washington, D.C. Learn more at synmax.com.
About Satellogic
Founded in 2010, Satellogic (NASDAQ: SATL) builds the infrastructure for Persistent Global Intelligence (PGI): continuous, proactive awareness of the places, assets, and activities that matter. The company combines high-cadence satellite collection, best-in-class technology, AI-accelerated workflows, and sovereign-trusted architecture to help customers move from episodic imagery to persistent monitoring programs.Â
Satellogic serves allied defense and intelligence agencies, civil governments, and commercial markets that need reliable, scalable awareness of change across large portfolios of sites. Customers can begin with discovery, expand into persistent monitoring, and build toward dedicated or sovereign-controlled capacity as their mission requirements grow. To learn more, please visit: https://www.satellogic.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. The words “anticipate”, “believe”, “continue”, “could”, “estimate”, “expect”, “intends”, “may”, “might”, “plan”, “possible”, “potential”, “predict”, “project”, “should”, “would” and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. These forward-looking statements are based on Satellogic’s current expectations and beliefs concerning, among other things, our plans, strategies, prospects, both business and financial. Although we believe our plans, intentions and expectations reflected in or suggested by these forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot give any assurance that we either will achieve or realize these plans, intentions or expectations. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Generally, statements that are not historical facts, including statements concerning possible or assumed future actions, business strategies, events or results of operations, are forward-looking statements. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of the Company. Many factors could cause actual future results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to the risks and uncertainties described in the “Risk Factors” section of Satellogic’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and other documents filed or to be filed by Satellogic from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and Satellogic assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Satellogic can give no assurance that it will achieve its expectations.
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