Near Space Labs / Gulf Blue Happy Hour

​Join Near Space Labs and Dewberry for a happy hour at Gulf Blue headquarters in Gulfport on Wednesday, October 14, starting at 5:00 PM.

​We operate the world's largest commercial fleet of autonomous, zero-emission stratospheric imaging vehicles. In August we pointed them at this coast: roughly 2,000 square kilometers of Mississippi and Louisiana shoreline, wetlands, ports, and barrier islands, captured in a single mission at 7 cm resolution. WLOX covered the survey: https://www.wlox.com/2026/09/02/company-maps-gulf-coast-shorelines-45000-feet-aerial-imagery-firm-partners-with-usms-gulf-blue-during-hurricane-season/

​The evening is conversation first: drinks and food with the people who work this coastline, from federal science and engineering offices to state agencies, ports, and coastal researchers. At 6:00 we take twenty minutes for the first look at the survey imagery, with Dewberry, whose team supports NOAA's coastal mapping work in two Mississippi coastal counties, on what gets built on top of this data and what it makes possible.

​The coast changes faster than most mapping programs can revisit it. This survey is an additional input at a different cadence. If you are in town for the Mississippi GIS Conference the next day, this is the evening before.

​See you there,
Alexander Kapur, SVP of Business Development, Near Space Labs