{"id":18562,"date":"2018-04-18T21:33:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T13:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/bill-gates-airbus-and-softbank-invest-in-satellite-video-startup-that-wants-to-help-us-see-and-understand-the-earth-live-and-unfiltered\/"},"modified":"2018-04-18T21:33:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T13:33:35","slug":"bill-gates-airbus-and-softbank-invest-in-satellite-video-startup-that-wants-to-help-us-see-and-understand-the-earth-live-and-unfiltered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/bill-gates-airbus-and-softbank-invest-in-satellite-video-startup-that-wants-to-help-us-see-and-understand-the-earth-live-and-unfiltered\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Gates, Airbus and SoftBank invest in satellite video startup that wants to help us \u2018see and understand the Earth live and unfiltered\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Airbus
A graphic shows the preliminary design for satellites that Airbus is manufacturing for OneWeb. EarthNow plans to use a modified version of the same platform to beam real-time video down to Earth. (C3 Creative Code and Content GmbH Photo via Airbus)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The latest spinout from Intellectual Ventures, EarthNow, says it\u2019s coming out of stealth mode with backing from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and other high-profile investors.<\/p>\n

Bellevue, Wash.-based EarthNow aims to operate a fleet of small satellites that will send continuous real-time video views of our planet from Earth orbit. The satellites will be modified versions of the spacecraft that Airbus is building for the OneWeb broadband internet satellite constellation.<\/p>\n

In addition to Gates, EarthNow\u2019s investors include Airbus, OneWeb founder and executive chairman Greg Wyler and Japan\u2019s SoftBank Group, the startup said today in a news release. The amount of funding was undisclosed, but for what it\u2019s worth, SoftBank made a billion-dollar investment in OneWeb back in 2016.<\/p>\n

The funding will be used primarily to mature the overall design for the Earth observation system, EarthNow said.<\/p>\n

\"EarthNow<\/p>\n

\u201cEarthNow is ambitious and unprecedented, but our objective is simple: We want to connect you visually with Earth in real time,\u201d said CEO Russell Hannigan, who worked at Intellectual Ventures before founding EarthNow. \u201cWe believe the ability to see and understand the Earth live and unfiltered will help all of us better appreciate and ultimately care for our one and only home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wyler made clear that EarthNow would leverage the design work that\u2019s already been done for OneWeb.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe created the world\u2019s first low-cost, high-performance satellites for mass production to bridge the digital divide,\u201d he said in today\u2019s news release. \u201cThese very same satellite features will enable EarthNow to help humanity understand and manage its impact on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The satellites for EarthNow, like the satellites for OneWeb, would be manufactured by Airbus at facilities in France and Florida. Nicolas Chamussy, head of space systems at Airbus, said his company will \u201ccertainly be a valuable partner\u201d for EarthNow.<\/p>\n

EarthNow declined to provide details about its timetable for winning regulatory approvals, launching satellites or beginning commercial operations. But the fact that EarthNow is piggybacking on OneWeb\u2019s expertise implies it won\u2019t have to start from square one.<\/p>\n

OneWeb aims to have its first satellites deployed next year. Hundreds of satellites, and eventually thousands, are to be put into orbit for OneWeb\u2019s internet constellation by launch providers including Arianespace, Virgin Orbit and Blue Origin.<\/p>\n

EarthNow said it would begin by offering commercial video and intelligent vision services to a range of government and enterprise customers.<\/p>\n

The applications could include monitoring the seas for illegal fishing, tracking hurricanes and typhoons as they evolve, detecting forest fires when they start, providing on-demand data about crop health, and observing conflict zones and natural disasters around the world.<\/p>\n

\"Russell
Russell Hannigan is founder and CEO of EarthNow. (Photo via Twitter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

EarthNow said it\u2019s also working on mass-market video apps for tablets and mobile devices.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited by the prospect of giving everyone a stunningly beautiful real-time window on your world from space,\u201d Hannigan said. \u201cWith EarthNow, we will all become virtual astronauts.\u201d<\/p>\n

EarthNow\u2019s plan to beam continuous real-time video from space is more ambitious than the near-real-time satellite imagery services envisioned by such companies as Planet, BlackSky, Earth-i and Planetary Resources. But EarthNow may not have the real-time video market to itself.<\/p>\n

SpaceX, for example, is competing with OneWeb to put an internet satellite constellation known as Starlink into low Earth orbit. Last year, SpaceX filed a trademark application for the Starlink name that suggested its constellation could be used for Earth observation and remote sensing as well.<\/p>\n

SpaceX already has extensive satellite development facilities in Redmond, Wash., near EarthNow\u2019s headquarters. The first prototype Starlink satellites were sent into orbit in February. And last month, the Federal Communications Commission approved SpaceX\u2019s application for broadband internet services.<\/p>\n

EarthNow takes its place among earlier spinouts from Intellectual Ventures, a Bellevue-based technology incubator led by former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold. Gates is an investor in most of those spinouts, including TerraPower, Kymeta, Echodyne, Evolv, Pivotal Commware and Sunlight Payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A graphic shows the preliminary design for satellites that Airbus is manufacturing for OneWeb. EarthNow plans to use a modified version of the same platform to beam real-time video down to Earth. (C3 Creative Code and Content GmbH Photo via Airbus) The latest spinout from Intellectual Ventures, EarthNow, says it\u2019s coming out of stealth mode […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[941,5252,159,5064,5253,1277,20,4951,4329,273],"class_list":["post-18562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-airbus","tag-bill-gates","tag-earth-observation","tag-earthnow","tag-intellectual-ventures","tag-oneweb","tag-satellite","tag-softbank","tag-startups","tag-venture-capital"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18562"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}