Micro-satellites
Micro-Satellites, low cost earth imaging
Geoscience: Eyes in the Sky, Monitoring the Earth by Satellite http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Micro-satellites / #EarthImaging #EarthSciences #Geo360
Earth Imaging 'startups' -- nextgen #earthscience in an era of #climatechange and #globalsecurity threat -- “Five years from now, there might be 200 or more up there..." [1]... BlackBridge [2], Dauria [3], DigitalGlobe [4], GeoOptics [5], NovaWurks [6], OmniEarth [7], OrbitLogic [8], PlanetiQ [9], Planet Lab [10] [11], RapidEye [12], Skybox [13] [14] [15], Teledyne [16], Tyvak Nano-Sat [17], Urthecast [18]
“With all these start-ups, the things you’ll be able to do with satellite images will grow exponentially.” [IEEE-May 2014]
24/7 high-definition video of Earth <Urthecast-ISS> [19] Live from the International Space Station [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]
Feb 2014 – Planet Labs
Since the launch of the Landsat program in 1972, generating images of Earth from space has been the near-exclusive domain of enormous, multi-million dollar satellites sponsored by nations and major defense corporations. But these new micro-satellites, recently launched from the ISS, aim to make real-time imaging available for a fraction of the price.
<more> http://gizmodo.com/meet-the-flockers-iss-launches-low-cost-earth-imaging-1517232660
Earth Imaging - background – 2007 - Acquiring large data sets of Earth imagery in a simple, low-cost way, represents a new market opportunity that has yet to be addressed. New telescope design enables low-cost satellite with that purpose.
Dec 2013 - How Planet Labs Is Saving the Earth with 'Homemade' Satellites. It took less than six months to build twenty-eight of them ...
<more> http://www.businessinsider.com/planet-labs-fleet-of-homemade-satellites-2013-12?op=1
http://www.space.com/23739-tiny-earth-satellite-fleet-launching-december.html
Nov 2013
Flock of Mini-sats delivered to space - http://www.space.com/23738-dnepr-rocket-launches-32-satellites.html
CubeSats - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubesats
Sept 2013 – Sensors and Systems - “Every year the technology improves, with better computers and storage and payloads. The technological evolution improves, price points continue to come down, and now with a small 150 to 300 kg spacecraft for $10 to $20 million you can do what you were doing with a 1,000 kg spacecraft five to 10 years ago for $500 million.” Surrey Satellite Technology-RapidEye satellite imagery “Changing the Economics of Space”
<more> http://www.sstl.co.uk/ - [note connection to SpaceX - Elon Musk] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrey_Satellite_Technology