Planet Labs Has Launched Over 100 Imaging Satellites with Many More to Come (Video)

According to a recent CNN article, Planet Labs produces Great photos of Earth from the world's smallest satellites. Most satellites these days are about the size of a car. Planet Labs micro-satellites are closer to the size of a shoebox. The company was founded in 2012 and has attracted major venture capital. They're using that money to launch an ever-increasing number of Flocks (their word) of satellites they call "Doves," which are basically nothing but cameras and simple comm equipment, along with solar panels, batteries, and control circuitry required to make everything work. Interviewee Shaun Meehan gets into most of this in the video; for more detail, please read the transcript.

Comments

Re:Spacejunk

[MozeeToby]

Their smaller size means they experience higher drag relative to their mass, they will fall out of orbit much more quickly than a full sized satellite in a similar orbit would. Since they are earth observing, and with very limited optics I would venture a guess that they are in a very low orbit and will come down relatively quickly.

COTS and no internal redundancy

[Actually, I do RTFA]

So, reading this the one thing that I get above all else is their plan is to accept a very high failure rate and make up for it with more units sent to space. I wonder if this approaching being economically viable is a good thing or not for space exploration. Are more companies that have high acceptable losses going to lead to a general prevalence in the industry. Which might mean that, like secure software, hardware capable of getting men to Mars might be considered "unachievable".