Planet Labs, a San Francisco-based startup company, has started launching multiple imaging satellites which will form the world's biggest constellation of imaging devices.
The imaging devices, also known as "cubesats," were ejected into space by the International Space Station (ISS). The size of cubesat is similar to the size of a bread loaf and each of them will revolve around the Earth at an altitude between 240 to 400 miles. Twenty-four more cubesats is scheduled to be launched in a few days and collectively, these cubesats will form the Flock 1 fleet of Planet Labs.
Each cubesat can take pictures with 10 to 16.5 meter resolution and they'll gather pictures from areas within 52 degrees of the equator. According to the American private company, this allowance is large enough to capture images from the planet's agricultural areas and populated regions.
The constellation of imaging systems is assumed to be very flexible, as each of the cubesats is controlled by software programs which could be easily managed from the ground.
"Our ability to build and operate spacecraft will allow us to do more with these spacecraft in the future as we begin to think about the satellite segment as a very remote server with a whole bunch of sensors on board that could be reprogrammed to do other things," Planet Labs co-founder Robbie Schingler said to SPACE.com.
The Flock 1 is expected to provide companies and various organizations with low-cost, high resolution, and updated imagery from anywhere in the world. These images could be used for different goals, they could be used to track down the effects of deforestation, path of animal migration, a typhoon's projectile, or monitoring the spread of oil in case of a leak.
Schingler, said in a statement, "Our company goal is to image everywhere very frequently, for everyone."
The prototype of the cubesats was released by Planet Labs on April and November of 2013.
