We recently announced our partnership with IO Aerospace™. We sat down with Jonathan Neufeld, President at IO Aerospace, for a quick talk about their company, their data, and what this partnership means to them.
1. Can you tell us a little bit about IO Aerospace™ as a company? When, where, and why was it founded?
We founded IO Aerospace™ in 2022 to rethink how airborne Earth observation data is collected and delivered. We saw a gap in the market for faster, more flexible access to ultra high-resolution imagery, especially for mission-critical use cases.
We’re headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, with offices in Denver, Colorado and Provo, Utah. From the start, our focus has been on supporting special missions and advanced remote sensing through a combination of aircraft services and high-performance sensor systems.
Today, we deliver 10 cm native resolution RGB and NIR aerial imagery, along with elevation data, to customers across utilities, agriculture, mapping, infrastructure, and disaster response. In 2025, we launched our 10 cm wide-area imagery platform, reflecting our approach to a more operational model for Earth observation.
What really differentiates us is our purpose-built airborne system. We operate a modified jet equipped with a high-resolution multi-camera sensor designed for fast, flexible, mission-ready imaging. Beyond imagery, we support sensor design, custom payload integration, data collection flights, processing, and advanced analytics, helping our partners test, deploy, and scale airborne sensing solutions more efficiently.
IO Aerospace
2. Can you tell us about how IO Aerospace™ collects data and your modified jet?
Absolutely. At the core of how we collect data is our specially modified Learjet 35A, purpose-built for high-performance remote sensing and payload testing.
The aircraft operates at high altitude and high speed, allowing us to cover very large areas quickly and efficiently. This maximizes sensor swath width and ensures consistent, high-quality data across wide regions. At the same time, we’ve built in the flexibility to fly lower and slower for more targeted missions.
From a technical standpoint, the jet includes dual mid-fuselage payload bays, enhanced stability modifications, extended range, and robust onboard power and computing. We also have a dedicated operator station and scalable data handling systems to support multiple sensors and complex missions.
We’ve designed the process to be straightforward. Once scoped, planning and scheduling typically happens within about a week. Data acquisition is fast, up to 10,000 square kilometers in a single flight depending on the mission. Processing begins within 24 hours after data acquisition, and delivery follows on a rolling basis in cloud-optimized formats, including orthorectified imagery and elevation data.
IO Aerospace
3. Tell us about IO Aerospace™’s offers. How do they help to solve real-world problems?
At a high level, we offer a faster, more scalable way to collect ultra-high-resolution geospatial data, especially for organizations operating across very large areas.
One good example is utilities. Many need high-resolution mapping across hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. But conventional airborne collection can take years and multiple aircraft.
We’ve approached that differently. With our system, we can collect that same scale of data in weeks using a single aircraft. We capture up to 10,000 square kilometers of four-band imagery per flight at 10 cm resolution, creating a consistent, high-quality data layer for mapping, monitoring, and AI applications.
What makes this impactful is the combination of speed, scale, and flexibility. We can deploy quickly, adjust flight plans for clear-sky conditions, and prioritize based on customer timelines. Everything is focused on delivering the most current data possible.
IO Aerospace
4. What do you think are some of the biggest untapped areas of opportunity for aerial data?
We think we’re still at the beginning of what aerial data can do.
One of the biggest opportunities is creating a consistent, high-resolution base layer at scale. Many organizations still rely on outdated or fragmented datasets. There’s a real opportunity to give teams a single, reliable, up-to-date view they can build on.
Another area is AI and analytics. High-resolution data becomes much more powerful when it feeds machine learning models, but that potential is still underutilized. As data becomes more consistent and frequently updated, we’ll see a shift toward more proactive, automated monitoring.
We also see opportunity in time-sensitive applications like disaster response and environmental monitoring, where access to current data is critical.
More broadly, there’s a shift toward an operational model for Earth observation. The untapped opportunity is making data collection feel on demand, where customers can task, schedule, and access data as needed.
5. What are some of the biggest barriers facing wider adoption of aerial data?
One of the biggest barriers is awareness. Many organizations don’t fully understand what’s possible with modern aerial data or how much the technology has advanced.
There’s still a perception that aerial and satellite data are interchangeable, or that aerial collection is slow and difficult to scale. In reality, that has changed significantly, driven in large part by innovations like those we’re doing at IO Aerospace™.
We see challenges around use case education. Teams know they need better data, but aren’t always sure how to integrate it into workflows or apply it to AI, monitoring, or large-scale mapping. Once they see what’s possible, that usually changes quickly.
There’s also inertia. Many organizations are used to working with fragmented or outdated datasets. Moving to a more on-demand, operational model requires a shift in thinking.
Overall, it’s less about technical limitations and more about closing that knowledge gap.
6. Can you tell us about IO Aerospace™’s decision to partner with UP42?
For us, the decision to partner with UP42 was about scale and accessibility.
We see UP42 as a leader in making geospatial data easy to access and integrate. The platform allows us to connect our imagery to a broader global audience through tools organizations already use.
We had previous touchpoints with UP42 that helped us understand how our data would fit in with their offerings, which made this a natural next step.
At a strategic level, it’s about reach. We’re building a platform capable of delivering high-resolution data at scale, and UP42 gives us an efficient path to a global market.
Ultimately, the partnership helps us get our data into more hands, across more industries, while making it easier for users to access and apply it within their workflows.
IO Aerospace
7. What’s next for IO Aerospace™?
There’s a lot in development right now, which is exciting for us.
We’re continuing to expand both our technology and operational capabilities, particularly around speed, scale, and flexibility. While we’re not sharing full details yet, there’s definitely more coming.
For now, we’d say stay tuned. We’re looking forward to sharing more soon.
