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NextGen 'startups' -- 'eyes in the sky' for commercial/civilian/earth science, conservation, resources and sustainability... going beyond military uses of first-generation satellites

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/satellites/9-earthimaging-startups-to-watch

Words like “provocative,” “disruptive,” and “game-changing” are rarely applied to the staid world of satellite imaging. But that’s exactly the kind of talk the industry is generating, with the successful launches of more than two dozen Earth-imaging satellites in the last few months and the planned launches of yet more by year’s end.

Those spacecraft are being lofted not by traditional aerospace players but by venture-capital-funded start-ups. What’s more, the satellites cost an order of magnitude less than traditional spacecraft, and in many cases they’ll be networked in large constellations capable of revisiting sites far more frequently than what’s now possible....

The start-ups are keeping costs down by keeping their spacecraft small and in many cases by creatively scavenging components from other industries. As director of engineering at NASA’s Ames Research Center from 2005 to 2011, Pete Klupar pushed for exactly the kind of cheaper, smaller spacecraft that are now going into orbit. He notes that Skybox and Planet Labs “are using IMUs [inertial measurement units] from video games, radio components from cellphones, processors meant for automobiles and medical devices, reaction wheels meant for dental tools, cameras intended for professional photography and the movies, and open-source software available on the Internet.”

“What these companies are doing is very unique, very exciting,” he adds. “Instead of developing their own hardware from scratch” as established satellite makers have tended to do, he says, “they’re taking the fruits of the commercial world’s labor and applying them to space.”