LA NIÑA’S EFFECTS


On a rare clear February day during California’s rainy 2017 winter, a satellite snapped this picture of Planet’s San Francisco headquarters. It shows not only the Golden Gate Bridge, top left, but also the sediment washed by rains from the 4,600 square miles of the watershed muddying the San Francisco Bay. A scientist measuring how water quality changes as runoff increases could supplement data from water samples with satellite imagery from the same days—since Planet re-images the entire planet every day—to develop a broader understanding of the daily impact of sediment.


Planet’s medium-resolution Dove satel- lites (in the aerospace industry, satellites are commonly called “birds”) got the name because they are “peace-bringing satellites, enabling commercial, humani- tarian, and environmental applications at a scale that has never been attempted before,” according to the company web- site. As of October 2017, there were more


than 175 of them circling the Earth. In a single launch in February, Planet sent 88 satellites aboard an Indian rocket into orbit. Another 48 were launched in July aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.


Also in Planet’s constellation are five medium-resolution RapidEye


satellites,


Satellite Imagery Resolution


Remote sensing images are composed of a matrix of picture elements, or pixels, which are the smallest units of an image.


If a sensor has a spatial resolu- tion of 20 meters and an image from that sensor is displayed at full resolution, each pixel repre- sents an area of 20 meters by 20 meters on the ground.


(SOURCE: Natural Resources Canada)


acquired when it bought BlackBridge in 2015; seven high-resolution SkySat satel- lites acquired when Google sold its Terra Bella subsidiary to Planet in February 2017 (as part of which, Google acquired an equity stake in Planet and entered into a multiyear agreement to purchase SkySat imaging data); and six SkySats launched in October.


Not that the private satellite business is without its risks. In October 2014, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket, whose payload included 26 Doves bound for release from the International Space Sta- tion, exploded shortly after launch off the coast of Virginia. In June 2015, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket broke up during takeoff from Cape Canaveral in Florida; eight Doves were aboard.


While Planet is most definitely a busi- ness—according to a Bloomberg Business


article from June 29, 2017, Planet has raised more than $180 million in ven- ture capital and is valued at more than $1 billion—it sees its mission as making the world a better place by changing the way we understand, and ultimately manage, the Earth’s resources. “Whether you’re measuring agricultural yields, moni- toring natural resources or aiding first responders after natural disasters,” says its website, “our data is here to lend busi- nesses and humanitarian organizations a helping hand. Planet believes


timely,


global imagery will empower informed, deliberate and meaningful stewardship of our planet.”


Schingler, 38, Planet’s co-founder and chief strategy officer, spoke with Army AL&T on Oct. 11, 2017. He worked for 10 years at NASA, where he helped build the Small Spacecraft Office at NASA Ames and pursued new business opportu- nities for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, a planned space telescope that’s part of NASA’s Explorers Program.


Schingler later served as NASA’s open government representative to the White House and as chief of staff for the Office of the Chief Technologist at NASA. He


ASC.ARMY.MIL 231


CRITICAL THINKING


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