Planet Labs To Acquire Terra Bella And Launch Largest Ever Constellation Of Satellites

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Planet has agreed to acquire Terra Bella (formerly Skybox Imaging) from Google, who acquired Skybox Imaging in August 2014. Will Marshall, CEO at Planet Labs, writes for the company: “Planet Labs is thrilled to announce that we have entered into an agreement with Google, wherein Planet will acquire the Terra Bella business including the SkySat constellation of satellites, and Google upon closing, will enter into a multi-year contract to purchase Earth-imaging data from Planet.” The SkySat constellation, while consisting of only 7 satellites, is capable of images with sub-meter resolution, compared with 3- to 5-meter resolution from Planet’s Dove satellites, which Marshall expects will be highly complementary and enable Planet to serve new customers and markets.

Planet Labs also announced plans today for what they believe to be the largest number of satellites ever launched at once—88 new satellites—scheduled for Feb. 14. Mike Safyan, Director of Launch and Regulatory Affairs at Planet, writes, “The Dove satellites (collectively known as ‘Flock 3p’) will ride aboard a PSLV rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre … [to a] Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) at an approximate altitude of 500 km.” The 88 Doves of Flock 3p will join the 12 Doves of Flock 2p to create a constellation of 100 satellites. AVweb believes the current largest satellite constellation to be the 66 satellites operated by Iridium Communications. Planet’s goal is to be able to provide fresh satellite imagery for every spot on the globe every 24 hours.

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