Earth Observation: Skybox Imaging Micro-Satellites

Skybox Imaging is an information and analytics company that provides easy access to reliable and frequent high-resolution imagery and first-ever HD video of the earth by combining the power of web technologies and a constellation of micro-satellites.

By operating the world’s first coordinated high-resolution imaging constellation, Skybox aims to empower commercial and government customers to make more informed, data-driven decisions that will improve the profitability of companies and the welfare of societies around the world.

Through a planned constellation of 24+ satellites that will capture high-resolution imagery and the first ever HD-video of any spot on earth, multiple times per day, Skybox will be able to take the pulse of the planet on a near real-time basis to provide an indispensable tool in addressing global challenges in areas including security, humanitarian efforts, and environmental monitoring.

Founded in 2009, Skybox has raised $91M from leading silicon valley investors, including Khosla Ventures, Bessemer Ventures, Canaan Partners, and Norwest Venture Partners. Skybox is on track to launch its first two satellites of the constellation in late 2013.

Skybox is currently headquartered in Mountain View, CA and was named to MIT Technology Review’s “Top 50 Most Innovative Companies” in 2012 and Red Herring Top 100 North American companies in 2013.

Plastic Space Telescopes: Photon sieves make super-cheap viewers

FLEXIBLE plastic telescopes launched from microsatellites could serve as quick replacements for space observatories taken out by solar flares, or spy satellites downed by military action.

The telescopes, which are being developed by Geoff Andersen and colleagues at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, rely on an imaging device called a photon sieve. 

Traditional telescopes use lenses or mirrors to focus light by refraction or reflection, but the photon sieve uses diffraction instead. 

The sieve is an ultra-thin plastic disc perforated by millions of microscopic holes, each of which bends light at different angles to create a focal point.

Less light reaches the focal point compared with traditional lenses or mirrors, making it hard to image dim objects, and the device can only take black-and-white pictures. 

But the sieve is cheap, lightweight and easy to manufacture at large sizes. It can also be tightly folded and unfurled without being damaged. "You can't do that with mirrors or lenses," says Andersen, who hopes to launch a device into orbit in 2014.

The planned 20-centimetre-diameter telescope will be scrunched up inside a CubeSat, a microsatellite just 10 × 10 × 30 cm, designed for cheaply carrying small payloads. 

Andersen's team aims to take pictures of the sun to prove that the concept works. A similar device could also help the search for Earth-like planets, Andersen says, though such images would require a big telescope, and would likely be just a few pixels wide.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is also interested in using the concept to build a 20-metre version of the photon sieve for imaging objects on the ground at sub-metre resolutions.

Andersen says the design is partly a response to China's demonstration in 2007 of an anti-satellite missile. "That showed a billion-dollar national asset could be shot down at any time," he says.

He will present the research at the Defense, Security and Sensing conference in Baltimore, Maryland, next month.

Marek Kukula of the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London says that while the devices won't replace the likes of the Hubble or James Webb space telescopes, a "cheap and cheerful" alternative to smaller telescopes would have many applications.

NASA Shuttle Endeavour: Fingernail-sized satellites on board

Three prototypes of these chip satellites, named "Sprite," will be mounted on the International Space Station after the space shuttle Endeavour delivers them on its final flight, which is scheduled to launch at 3:47 p.m. EDT on Friday, April 29.

President Barack Obama and alumna U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, MRP '97, (D-Ariz.), who has not been seen publicly since the Jan. 8 attack in Tucson, Ariz., plan to attend the launch. The Endeavour crew is led by Commander Mark Kelly, Giffords' husband.

The thin, 1-inch-square chips, in development for three years in the lab of Mason Peck, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, will be mounted to the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE-8) pallet, which will be attached to the space station, exposing them to the harsh conditions of space to see how they hold up and transmit data.

Although grapefruit-size satellites have been launched before, they have functioned much like larger satellites. The flight dynamics of a chip satellite are fundamentally different from these larger "CubeSats."

"Their small size allows them to travel like space dust," said Peck. "Blown by solar winds, they can 'sail' to distant locations without fuel. ... We're actually trying to create a new capability and build it from the ground up. ... We want to learn what's the bare minimum we can design for communication from space," Peck said.

When the MISSE-8 panel is removed and returned to Earth in a few years, the survival of the prototypes will be assessed.

Ex-Soviet ICBM: SS18 'Satan' rocket launches three European micro-satellites

Ex-'Satan' rocket launches three European micro-satellites

A former Soviet SS-18 intercontinental missile lofted a trio of European micro-satellites into space on Wednesday, including a satellite to monitor the Sun's impact on climate change, France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) said.

The Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr lifted off at 1442 GMT from Yasny, southern Russia, the CNES said in a press release issued in Paris.

Its triple payload included a 150-kilo (330-pound) French satellite called Picard that will scrutinise the Sun for changes that could affect Earth's climate system.

More than 80 percent of current climate change is attributable to greenhouse gases that trap solar heat, leaving variations in solar output as the other big contributor.

Picard, named after a 17th-century French astronomer who investigated solar activity, will orbit at an altitude of 725 kilometres (453 miles), the CNES said.

It carries a telescope that will take images of the Sun in five wavelengths, and two other instruments to measure the Sun's energy output.

The other passengers aboard the Dnepr were the satellites Mango and Tango, under a Swedish Space Corporation project called Prisma.

They will test new sensors and navigation technologies designed to enable satellites to rendezvous or fly in formation in space.

The SS-18 was code-named "Satan" by NATO in the Cold War's heyday. In the 1990s, a number of the missiles were converted so that they could carry small civilian payloads into low Earth orbit.