During the next launch of the Starlink satellites, there will also be three additional Planet satellites at the top of the Falcon 9 rocket that will photograph Earth. It will be the same during the next start planned for July.
Planet is a company that offers satellite imagery of the Earth for representatives of various industries such as agriculture, energy, forestry and maritime economy. Company customers usually expect up-to-date and accurate photos of selected fragments of the Earth's surface. Thanks to the existing constellation of SkySat satellites that Planet purchased from Google in 2017, this is the product they can offer.
Looking at development, Planet has been losing its satellite orbit from 500 km to 450 km over the past six months. By reducing the distance, it was possible to improve the detail of the photos. Now you can see 50 cm objects in the pictures (previously it was 80 cm). The difference does not seem great, but in reality it is only now possible to recognize whether the car in the photo is passenger or truck, and this is a significant difference, e.g. for planned autonomous car systems.
Resolution is one thing, and the timeliness of photos is another
Customers will appreciate the higher resolution of photos, but the frequency of refreshing photos by the supplier is equally important to them. Shorter intervals between subsequent photos allow clients to examine and characterize changes made by man or unexpected events.
With the new six SkySat satellites, Planet will be able to photograph anywhere on Earth 7 times a day on average, with some locations being photographed up to 12 times a day. In this way, the company will be able to respond quickly to sudden events anywhere in the world. Last week, Planet was the first satellite operator to take a photo of the Black Lives Matter inscription painted on the road leading to the White House. The inscription was made just a few hours earlier.
Meanwhile, SpaceX appears
Until recently, the main problem in the development of satellite constellations was the cost of launching satellites into orbit. Everything changed when SpaceX offered external companies a place at the top of its Falcon 9 rockets launching the SpaceX constellation satellites. In this way, external companies receive low payload rates, and SpaceX amortizes some of the cost of launching their satellites into orbit. Considering the plans of Elon Musk involving the launch into orbit of a minimum of 12,000 Starlinks, any opportunity to reduce costs is worth attention.
Mike Safyan, vice president of Planet, admitted that the option to expand the SkySat constellation only began when SpaceX drastically reduced the costs of launching satellites into orbit. Currently, it takes just $ 500 to get 1 kg of satellites on a combined flight with Starlinks.
The above example is a perfect illustration of what development of rockets and new technologies leads to. Although Elon Musk builds his entire SpaceX PR on the image of Martian and lunar missions, in fact companies such as Planet also benefit from it, which in turn allows us to take better care of our planet, and thus of all of us.
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Starlinki will have company. SpaceX will take Earth observing satellites into orbit
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