PHOTOS: How Planet Labs Is Saving The Earth With These Cheap Handmade Satellites
Here's a good look at a Planet Labs satellite, a member of the largest ever fleet of imaging satellites.
Production manager Chester Gillmore assembling a satellite with a screwdriver.
Engineer Ben Howard is testing a satellite. It took less than six months to build 28 of them.
Planet Labs calls this the Dove Nest 1, a rack filled with satellites.
Unlike other space objects, it doesn't require 10-200 people to manage each craft. "One-to-three people can operate a whole fleet," co-founder Robbie Schingler told us.
Here's a few prototypes.
This is the Dove 4 satellite complete with its solar panels.
This is the very first picture a Planet Labs satellite ever sent back to earth of the forests in Gales Creek, Oregon. Co-founder Robbie Schingler uses it as his PC wallpaper. Note the river and firebreak/path on the right.
Here is Babb, Montana. You can see a road and a river, as well as a small dam and the interesting-looking canals and viaduct in the south.
Here's a look at farms between two rivers in Lamona, Washington. You can also see the craggy cliffs on the river bend at the top of the photo.
Here is Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, with a good shot of the city of Kakegawa. That round building on the bottom, above the "20" is the Shizuoka stadium.
This is Droga Krajowa 11, Poland. When the founders were raising funds, they promised their tech "could count every tree on the planet," and these pictures from the test satellites proved it.
This gorgeous shot is the Sea Ice, Gulf of Bothnia between Sweden and Finland. You can't quite count the snowflakes but they are clearly there.
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