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w/ 149 satellites in orbit, Planet Labs can image the whole Earth every day @3-5m res

E-Cat

Member
See: A 16 min vid documentary on the @PlanetLabs cubesat flock & launch from remote India

Also:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...tellites-ushering-in-the-new-space-revolution

With all 149 satellites in place, Planet will be able to photograph every inch of Earth’s surface every day—something even the U.S. government can’t do. This satellite constellation is one of many signs that the relationship between humans and space is changing in ways unseen since Russia and the U.S. began sending rockets into orbit six decades ago. Thanks to modern software, artificial intelligence, advances in electronics and materials, and a generation of aggressive, unconventional entrepreneurs, we are awash in space startups. These companies envision an era in which rockets take off daily, filling the skies with satellites that sense Earth’s every action—in effect building a computational shell around our planet.

On two occasions the rockets have blown up, scattering Dove chunks across coastlines. These were expensive losses, but Planet has built such failures into its business model. If a rocket explodes, the company can simply order its employees back to the factory and start negotiating the next ride. As it is, the satellites are built to last only about three years, after which they fall back to Earth, disintegrating in the atmosphere.

When the Doves have been launched into a sun-synchronous orbit (one crossing the equator at the same local time every day), algorithms adjust their panels to guide them into position, spacing them out evenly. Getting all 88 of the Indian-launched satellites to fan out properly took a few months. As this story goes to press, they’re coming into perfect position.

Each Dove is responsible for collecting 10,000 images covering 2 million square kilometers per day, an area the size of Mexico. The pictures—40 gigabytes’ worth—are relayed during 10 daily eight-minute sessions on custom-built radios between the satellites and a dozen ground stations built by Planet in Antarctica, Chile, Hawaii, Iceland, and other places.

In the 1960s the satellite images the government needed were extremely hard to obtain. The U.S. had a program called Corona, in which an imaging satellite would take pictures and physically eject a capsule full of film toward Earth. A plane outfitted with a net would then try to catch the capsule midair. Amazingly, this system worked often enough to be useful.

The process is much simpler today, but truly high-quality images remain a rare commodity. The market leader is DigitalGlobe in Westminster, Colo., which operates a network of large satellites that produce “exquisite” pictures, in industry parlance. Their resolution is top-notch, capable of rendering objects as small as cars. The company says it can scan 60 percent of the Earth every month and capture specific targets on request. (The U.S. government usually gets priority.) DigitalGlobe’s satellites orbit at about 370 to 500 miles above Earth, higher than Planet Labs’ 230 to 310. In Planet Labs’ photos, while you can still make out cars, it’s hard to tell what color they are, for example.

To deal with the avalanche of new satellite imagery, companies are creating software that performs initial photo scans for movements and anomalies, then flags these for analysts. The shift toward artificial intelligence has many in the NGA feeling uneasy about their job security -- -- Gerby Marks, a counterterrorism expert and former DigitalGlobe employee, was considering retiring from the field when Planet came along. The combination of daily images and AI seemed to her a revelation—a way to predict the future rather than react to the past. “DigitalGlobe will only start looking at a site once there is a request to be tasked to it,” she says. “Now we’re able to detect things before we even know about them

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E-Cat

Member
Is the data available to the public? Google takes too long between updates.
"Nonprofits, students, and news organizations receive access for free, while the public at large can see older, lower-quality pictures gratis."
 
I expect to see this continue to grow. Bulgaria sent up its own satellite during SpaceX's double header last weekend and they flat out said that, were it not for SpaceX lowering the cost of delivering these things into orbit, they couldn't have done it. It remains to see how much market there is out there that's priced out by launch costs, but it could be huge. With ULA coming round to the idea of a cheaper launch system and Blue Origin hopefully operating in a similar way to SpaceX, it's about the most exciting time for rocket launches since they mothballed the Saturn V.
 

subrock

Member
I’d be really interested in mining this data for surface parking auditing in my hometown. Cool that they’re making this data available for free to non-profits
 
3-5 m resolution isn't really good, I assume daily updates at that resolution are used for the weather, forest fires and all that stuff.
Not to give you updates on what's up in your neighborhood etc.
 

Laiza

Member
How fucked up would a 24/7 real-time Google Earth be?
Depends on the resolution.

You'd need sub-cm resolution to be able to discern faces. Otherwise, tracking people becomes a guessing game based on vague blurs of hair and clothing color. Also, the latency would play a big factor there.

That is the end goal eventually, however. (It'd probably go hand-in-hand with AI that automatically blurs out people.)
 
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