Tag: Planet Labs
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SpaceX sends Starlink and Planet satellites to orbit in a new kind of piggyback launch
SpaceX today launched dozens more of its Starlink broadband internet satellites, plus three piggyback satellites for Planet — marking the first of the company’s in-house rideshare deliveries to orbit. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 5:21 a.m. ET (2:21 a.m. PT), just 10 days after the…
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SpaceX launches first Starlink rideshare mission with Planet Labs
As SpaceX continues to roll through its 2020 launch campaign, the company launched another batch of Starlink internet satellites to low Earth orbit, along with 3 small satellites provided by Planet Labs Inc. The mission launched on a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida…
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Planet Labs SkySats to rideshare with SpaceX Starlink launches
Planet Labs Inc. has announced they will launch six SkySat satellites, SkySats 16-21, on Falcon 9 rockets as rideshare missions on two Starlink launches. These six satellites will help provide Planet with more imaging coverage to complement the 15 other SkySat satellites, SkySat 1-15, in Sun-Synchronous Orbits (SSO). (Lead Image: Julia Bergeron, NSF) Over the…
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Images start to stream in from new crop of satellites after two launch extravaganzas
A satellite image of Beijing, captured by one of Planet’s SkySat spacecraft, shows the Chinese capital’s futuristic high-speed rail station toward the left edge of the frame. (Planet Photo) More than 100 payloads have been put into orbit over the past couple of weeks, including 64 satellites riding a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and 31…
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Planet Labs targets a search engine of the world
With over 200 Earth observation satellites, Planet Labs now operates the largest satellite constellation in history. The San Francisco based startup’s first goal – called Mission 1 – was to image Earth’s entire landmass once per day. That milestone was reached in late 2017. Now, the company wants to turn their data into a search…
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Rocket Lab sends Electron rocket into orbit, marking milestone for moon mission
Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle rises from its launch pad in New Zealand. (Rocket Lab via YouTube) Rocket Lab’s two-stage Electron rocket successfully reached Earth orbit and deployed satellites for the first time today, raising hopes for far more ambitious missions to the moon. Today’s mission, which went up from Rocket Lab’s launch complex on…
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Planet acquires rival satellite company from Google
One of Terra Bella’s SkySat satellites captured this image of downtown San Francisco on Dec. 27. Credit: Planet/Terra Bella San Francisco-based Planet, a company with a fleet of miniature satellites in orbit looking down on Earth, has acquired Terra Bella from Google to add high-resolution imaging to its business portfolio. The financial terms of the…
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Planet Labs says it’ll acquire Google’s satellite imaging subsidiary, Terra Bella
An artist’s conception shows Terra Bella’s SkySat satelltes in orbit. (Terra Bella Illustration) Planet Labs says it has struck a deal to acquire Google’s Terra Bella satellite imaging operation and its constellation of SkySat satellites, less than three years after Google bought the operation for $500 million. Financial terms for the acquisition weren’t announced. The deal…
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Planet opens office in Seattle area to work on data platform for satellite imagery
Karthik Govindhasamy, Planet’s chief technology officer and executive vice president of engineering, shows off a mural that depicts Dove satellites being deployed from the International Space Station. The mural graces the reception area of Planet’s Bellevue office. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) BELLEVUE, Wash. – Planet has landed … in the Seattle area. The upstart…
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NASA: Tracking CubeSats is easy, but many stay in orbit too long
Two shoebox-sized Planet Labs satellites deploy from a dispenser aboard the International Space Station in this image from August 2014. Credit: NASA U.S. military radars have little trouble tracking the flux of CubeSats filling orbital traffic lanes, diminishing worries that new commercial CubeSat constellations could generate collision hazards in space, according to a report issued…