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A couple of weeks ago, satellite imaging company Planet launched a flock of 48 ‘Doves’, their low cost imaging satellites. They managed to capture imagery of the launch from one of the Doves already in orbit:

Read more about it on the Planet blog.

As far as we know, this is a satellite imaging first. The key to the achievement was already having a large number of satellites in orbit which enabled them to task a suitable satellite to capture the launch. Even so, they had to tilt it in order to get the shots.

Google Earth features many planes in flight in its imagery. Simply look through historical imagery near any busy airport and you will likely find several. So why is it so hard to capture satellite launches? Put simply, because they are so rare and very fast (the above YouTube video is just 11 seconds long). The chances of a satellite being overhead and capturing an image at just the right time are close to zero unless it is planned in advance as was the case with the Dove satellite.

If you are interested in launch statistics, the website Spaceflight Now has a launch schedule which shows planned launches and we found Gunter’s Space Page which summarizes and categorizes launches. It is possible that there are also classified launches not listed on the above sites.

Satellite launches are unlikely to ever be captured in aerial imagery as aircraft will be excluded from the launch area during launches for safety reasons. Video of launches captured by drones is becoming quite common, but this is not the sort of imagery that is suitable for Google Earth.

The post Satellite launch in satellite imagery appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

On July 14, 2017, satellite imaging company Planet launched another 48 of their small, low resolution, satellites they call ‘Doves’ into orbit. They were launched on a Soyuz rocket together with a number of other satellites. This follows a record launch of 88 Doves back in February. In addition, earlier this year they acquired Google’s Terra Bella and Rapid Eye in 2015. If our count is correct they now have 192 Doves, 5 Rapid Eye satellites and 7 SkySat satellites for a total of 204.

Planet’s large fleet means they have very good coverage, being able to image most parts of the world multiple times per day. However, the small size of the satellites means the resolutions they offer are not as good as some of the other players in the imaging business. See this post for a summary of satellite resolutions. Also keep in mind that Google Earth features aerial imagery in some locations, which is higher resolution than any satellite can provide.

The Terra Bella sale announcement states that Google will purchase imagery from Planet in a multiyear contract. Whether we will see any Planet imagery in Google Earth, however, remains to be seen. It would certainly be nice to see the global mosaic used when zoomed out updated to a higher resolution and clearer image (less cloud and ice cover).

The post Planet Launches 48 More Satellites appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

We love Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery for their easy accessibility and global coverage, but they are rather low resolution at 10 m per pixel for Sentinel-2 and 15 m per pixel for Landsat. Commercial satellite imaging company Planet, now covers the globe with greater regularity and higher resolution (typically about 3 m per pixel) and for the US state of California, releases the imagery under creative commons licence within a couple of weeks of capture. We recently came across a large landslide that occurred along the Californian coast in an area known as Big Sur.

We were able to find it in Planet’s tool ‘Planet Explorer’ for browsing their imagery. You need to sign up to view daily imagery, but signup is easy and free.

The Big Sur Landslide as seen in Planet imagery.

Once you have signed up you can try going here to see the location in Planet Explorer. Try comparing before and after images with the built in ‘compare’ feature.

The post A Landslide in California with Planet Imagery appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Satellite imaging company Planet has recently released a new version of Planet Explorer, a tool for exploring its vast collection of satellite imagery. Read more about it on the Planet blog. Planet has added a time toolbar very similar to Google Earth’s ‘historical imagery’ feature.

With a record launch of 88 satellites in February this year, and the acquisition of Terra Bella, Planet now operates 149 satellites — the largest fleet in human history.

To view the imagery simply go to Planet Explorer Beta. You can see monthly global base maps without even logging in. If you sign up for a free account, you can then see high resolution base maps and daily imagery within the US. For the rest of the globe the free account only provides access to low resolution monthly base maps. In addition, the free account gives you access to the Open California dataset, which allows you to download imagery for California two weeks after capture. The Open California data is shared with a fairly liberal licence.

Keep in mind that most of the imagery is relatively low resolution at 2-5m per pixel. Terra Bella imagery is sub-metre per pixel, but still not as good as other commercial suppliers such as DigitalGlobe and nothing like as good as aerial imagery. Nevertheless, the imagery is sufficient for seeing large scale phenomenon such as flooding (as seen in the YouTube video above), wildfire, tornadoes (see below), landslides etc.

The scar from an EF4 tornado that struck Perryville, Missouri on February 28th,
2016. See in Planet Explorer.

The post Planet adds time dimension to its maps appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

A record breaking launch by India, on February 15th, 2017, put 104 satellites into orbit, including some 88 ‘Dove’ satellites owned by satellite imaging company Planet. The previous record for ‘most satellites launched in one go’ was 39 satellites and was held by Russia. Read more about the launch here.

PSLV-C37 at launch. Image credit: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

Planet already had a large number of Doves in orbit, but this launch more than doubled their fleet. Planet has now achieved its goal of being able to image all of earth’s landmass every day. The Doves have a resolution of 3-5m per pixel. Planet also owns the five Rapid Eye satellites, which have a resolution of around 5m per pixel. In addition, Planet is in the process of acquiring Terra Bella from Google, which comes with 7 sub-metre resolution satellites, and plans to launch many more.

Exactly how many Doves Planet has is a little unclear. Their previous blog post on the Terra Bella purchase, stated that they had a fleet of 60 medium resolution satellites. The blog post for this launch of 88 satellites states the new total is 144. Then later on in the same post, they say the entire fleet totals 149 satellites. We assume this is including the 5 Rapid Eye satellites, but not Terra Bella’s. So maybe 4 satellites were deorbited recently?

The post Record satellite launch allows Planet to image the planet daily appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

A record breaking launch by India, on February 15th, 2017, put 104 satellites into orbit, including some 88 ‘Dove’ satellites owned by satellite imaging company Planet. The previous record for ‘most satellites launched in one go’ was 39 satellites and was held by Russia. Read more about the launch here.

PSLV-C37 at launch. Image credit: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

Planet already had a large number of Doves in orbit, but this launch more than doubled their fleet. Planet has now achieved its goal of being able to image all of earth’s landmass every day. The Doves have a resolution of 3-5m per pixel. Planet also owns the five Rapid Eye satellites, which have a resolution of around 5m per pixel. In addition, Planet is in the process of acquiring Terra Bella from Google, which comes with 7 sub-metre resolution satellites, and plans to launch many more.

Exactly how many Doves Planet has is a little unclear. Their previous blog post on the Terra Bella purchase, stated that they had a fleet of 60 medium resolution satellites. The blog post for this launch of 88 satellites states the new total is 144. Then later on in the same post, they say the entire fleet totals 149 satellites. We assume this is including the 5 Rapid Eye satellites, but not Terra Bella’s. So maybe 4 satellites were deorbited recently?

The post Record satellite launch allows Planet to image the planet daily appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Last month we reported on a rumour that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, was selling their satellite imaging company Terra Bella to another satellite imaging company Planet. It is now official as announced on both the Planet Blog and Terra Bella’s home page (which directs you to the Planet Blog article). Terra Bella was formerly SkyBox Imaging and was acquired by Google in 2014.

The announcement says that the deal includes a multi-year contract between Planet and Google whereby Google will purchase Earth-imaging data from Planet. What we don’t know is what Google plans to do with the imagery. Do any of our readers know? We have not seen much in the way of Terra Bella imagery in Google Earth. We have seen some imagery from them in cases of disaster response. We assume Terra Bella has a number of corporate customers, but presumably those will stay with Terra Bella – becoming Planet customers.

Google Earth would actually benefit from Terra Bella imagery in areas where it doesn’t yet have high resolution imagery – which is actually quite a lot of places, typically hard to photograph areas such as the far north or tropical rain forests with near permanent cloud cover. Another opportunity would be more global mosaics, but this time using higher resolution Planet imagery rather than the relatively low resolution Landsat / Sentinel-2 imagery.

Over the last few years, Planet has become the world leader in medium resolution, high frequency satellite imagery. They have 60 medium resolution satellites (3-5m per pixel). That is set to more than double this Valentine’s Day when they plan to launch another 88 all at once. They also own the Rapid Eye satellites (five satellites with approx. 5m per pixel resolution) which they acquired in 2015. Terra Bella has 7 sub-metre resolution satellites and plans to launch many more. In contrast, the other major players in the Satellite imaging business have fewer satellites but higher resolution (down to 25cm per pixel in some cases).

The post Sale of Terra Bella to Planet now official appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Last month we reported on a rumour that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, was selling their satellite imaging company Terra Bella to another satellite imaging company Planet. It is now official as announced on both the Planet Blog and Terra Bella’s home page (which directs you to the Planet Blog article). Terra Bella was formerly SkyBox Imaging and was acquired by Google in 2014.

The announcement says that the deal includes a multi-year contract between Planet and Google whereby Google will purchase Earth-imaging data from Planet. What we don’t know is what Google plans to do with the imagery. Do any of our readers know? We have not seen much in the way of Terra Bella imagery in Google Earth. We have seen some imagery from them in cases of disaster response. We assume Terra Bella has a number of corporate customers, but presumably those will stay with Terra Bella – becoming Planet customers.

Google Earth would actually benefit from Terra Bella imagery in areas where it doesn’t yet have high resolution imagery – which is actually quite a lot of places, typically hard to photograph areas such as the far north or tropical rain forests with near permanent cloud cover. Another opportunity would be more global mosaics, but this time using higher resolution Planet imagery rather than the relatively low resolution Landsat / Sentinel-2 imagery.

Over the last few years, Planet has become the world leader in medium resolution, high frequency satellite imagery. They have 60 medium resolution satellites (3-5m per pixel). That is set to more than double this Valentine’s Day when they plan to launch another 88 all at once. They also own the Rapid Eye satellites (five satellites with approx. 5m per pixel resolution) which they acquired in 2015. Terra Bella has 7 sub-metre resolution satellites and plans to launch many more. In contrast, the other major players in the Satellite imaging business have fewer satellites but higher resolution (down to 25cm per pixel in some cases).

The post Sale of Terra Bella to Planet now official appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Satellite imaging company Planet has a programme for gathering satellite imagery for natural disaster response. Read more about it on the Planet blog. Although direct and timely access to the imagery for first responders requires emailing Planet and getting special access, there is actually quite a lot of imagery publicly available on the ‘disaster data’ page. It includes a list of recent disasters and some associated imagery and in many cases the option to download sets of imagery for the affected areas.

Pamplona, Cagayan Region, Philippines. Before and after Typhoon Haima. Image credit Planet.

Planet’s imagery is medium resolution in the 3-5 metre range, higher resolution than Landsat and Sentinel-2 but lower resolution than DigitalGlobe and CNES / Astrium. For a list of satellites and resolutions see here.

DigitalGlobe has a similar programme called ‘FirstLook’ whose imagery often makes it into Google Earth and much of the imagery we look at on this blog comes from that programme.

The post Planet imagery for natural disaster response appeared first on Google Earth Blog.