AgTech / Earth observation

NASA-winning AgTech tool built in 48 hours

How VITech turned a research prototype into a production-ready soil moisture intelligence platform — and won a NASA Galactic Impact award.

Talk to our team

48h

Prototype to production

10K+

Acres monitored

20+

Farmers onboarded

Nave Analytics

About the client

Nave Analytics is a U.S.-based AgTech company that helps farmers and agronomists make sense of Earth observation data.

Scale delivery month-to-month from 2 to 4 engineers as the roadmap needs command. Add up to two engineers in 48 hours. Flow includes delivery stories and Innovation Summits—our customer-driven hackathons—to fuel differentiation in the market.

Nave had the science to solve one of agriculture's most persistent problems: knowing when soil conditions are right to plant.
They needed engineering to turn that science into a tool farmers could actually use.

Scale delivery month-to-month from 2 to 4 engineers as the roadmap needs command. Add up to two engineers in 48 hours. Flow includes delivery stories and Innovation Summits—our customer-driven hackathons—to fuel differentiation in the market.

AgTech / Earth observation

Our role

Cloud architecture

Backend

Frontend

Analytics

API

CI/CD

Challenge

Fuse complex satellite data with hydrological models to provide real-time, 14-day forecasts

Project scope

Turn a research prototype into a production-ready soil moisture tool

Strong science,
fragmented product

The challenge

Farmers decide "Is today the right day to plant?" based often on intuition and weather forecasts. But soil moisture determines whether seeds germinate or fail.


Nave came in with a research prototype built around NASA's Earth observation data, which was scientifically solid but not production-ready.

Scale delivery month-to-month from 2 to 4 engineers as the roadmap needs command. Add up to two engineers in 48 hours. Flow includes delivery stories and Innovation Summits—our customer-driven hackathons—to fuel differentiation in the market.

Before
vs After VITech

We’re not
the status quo

Most teams hit the same friction points

as complexity grows. Flow is designed

to remove them.

Most teams hit the same friction points

as complexity grows. Flow is designed

to remove them.

BEFORE

Fragmented research prototype

AFTER VITECH

Fully deployable web application

BEFORE

Manual data processing

AFTER VITECH

Near-real-time cloud pipeline on AWS

BEFORE

No access management

AFTER VITECH

Role-based access via Amazon Cognito

BEFORE

Raw satellite output

AFTER VITECH

Actionable risk scores with 14-day forecast

BEFORE

No export capability

AFTER VITECH

HTTP API with JSON & CSV exports

2Plant or Not 2Plant

The solution

The app gives farmers daily, field-level assessments
and forecasts, and translates complex soil data into
two indicators:

Scale delivery month-to-month from 2 to 4 engineers as the roadmap needs command. Add up to two engineers in 48 hours. Flow includes delivery stories and Innovation Summits—our customer-driven hackathons—to fuel differentiation in the market.

Planting Moisture Sufficiency Risk Score— moisture for seeds to germinate

Soil Saturation Risk Score — Field conditions for machinery

For every 100-meter grid cell, users see

Current conditions

A 14-day outlook

Simple ratings: Poor, Fair, Good, Favorable

2Plant or Not 2Plant

The solution

The app gives farmers daily, field-level assessments
and forecasts, and translates complex soil data into
two indicators:

Planting Moisture Sufficiency Risk Score— moisture for seeds to germinate

Soil Saturation Risk Score — Field conditions for machinery

For every 100-meter grid cell, users see

Current conditions

A 14-day outlook

Simple ratings: Poor, Fair, Good, Favorable

Full-stack engineering,
every layer

We owned the entire stack in 48 hours — from cloud architecture
to the farmer-facing UI, including analytics, APIs, and CI/CD pipelines.

Cloud engineering

AWS Cognito

CI/CD pipelines

Analytics

Backend

API

HTTP API

JSON Exports

SCV Exports

Frontend

JavaScript

Earth observations

SMAP

AMSR2

SETMI

Cloud engineering

AWS Cognito

CI/CD pipelines

Backend

Frontend

JavaScript

Analytics

API

HTTP API

JSON Exports

SCV Exports

Earth observations

SMAP

AMSR2

SETMI

Cloud engineering

AWS Cognito

CI/CD pipelines

Frontend

JavaScript

API

HTTP API

JSON Exports

SCV Exports

Backend

Analytics

Earth observations

SMAP

AMSR2

SETMI

Valeriy Kovalsky

Head of R&D, Nave Analytics

We already knew what VITech could do. Working together was effortless; we understood each other immediately.

What we architected and delivered

Nave brought strong science, but their prototype was fragmented
and research-oriented. We architected, integrated, refined, and delivered
a fully scalable production product.

Cloud architecture (AWS)

Designed and deployed a reliable environment for large daily datasets and near-real-time calculations.

Secure access and user management

Implemented Amazon Cognito, role-based access, and smooth field management.

Application logic, UX, and UI

Rebuilt navigation, field summaries, and risk presentations → more intuitive views.

Analytics and visualizations

Used Python (xarray, pandas, plotly) to deliver fast, accurate maps and trend charts.

API and operational readiness

Added HTTP APIs for data exports (JSON & CSV) and set up CI/CD pipelines.

Outcome

A fragmented R&D prototype became a fully deployable application in 48 hours. NASA judges specifically highlighted the solution as "commercialization-ready."

First-season results

Soon after the competition, we integrated the tool into Nave's web platform for early adopters. The platform quickly demonstrated its practical value in real farming operations.

NASA Galactic Impact award

Commercial-ready tool

Commercial-ready tool

10,000+ acres monitored

20+ farmers in the first season

Positive feedback from U.S. Midwestern growers and agronomists

Positive feedback from U.S. Midwestern growers and agronomists

Recognition in regional agricultural media

Valeriy Kovalsky

Head of R&D, Nave Analytics

A Nebraska grower used the 7-day forecast to delay irrigation. Rain arrived exactly
as the app predicted, saving resources and building trust in the model. We do not make decisions for farmers; we help them make decisions with confidence.

Sitting on a prototype that needs to go live?

Sitting on a prototype that needs to go live?

Let’s shape it into a product
people can actually use

Let’s shape it into
a product people can actually use