Planet Labs' open satellite feed(tech.marksblogg.com)
58 pointsby marklit2 hours ago4 comments
  • smallerfishan hour ago
    I wish Planet had better pricing for nonprofits. I co-run a conservation nonprofit focused on deforestation in Latin America, and our affordable choices are between 2 year old Google Earth imagery, 10m resolution Nimbo imagery (ok, but not sufficiently detailed to evidentiary), and Sentinel 1 SAR data, which is useful but very noisy. Planet quoted us something like $30k per year for a strip of coastline that represents something like 5% of the territory we're monitoring, so it's just not a viable option under their current pricing model.
    • marklitan hour ago
      What sort of budget does your org support?

      I had to look into ~19 imagery firms for some telco work in Canada last year.

      There are private jets that can capture 10cm imagery and can pick the ideal weather window to fly in.

      There are also firms that fly balloons 20 - 80 KM off the ground that can capture 4cm imagery.

      The space is pretty busy.

      • smallerfish42 minutes ago
        We're volunteer driven and currently rely on personal donations, so we're scrappy. We could probably justify somewhere in the region of $10k/yr. The jets/balloon angle is interesting, thanks - hadn't occurred to me, and I'll search through what's out there.
        • marklit38 minutes ago
          See if you can negotiate reselling the imagery they sell you. It might be hard to get agreement with this as the vendor will have you both as a customer and compeditor but if you pull it off, you could recoup your costs and then some. For a few weeks, no one else in the private sector will have the freshness and/or quality of imagery you do.
        • embedding-shape25 minutes ago
          > The jets/balloon angle is interesting

          Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but what about drones? Probably would have to get permits most likely, but still might be cheaper than alternatives (although balloons are hard to beat when it comes to costs, not always reusable though).

          • marklit4 minutes ago
            Drones (and helicopters) do have their market as well. A lot of engineering firms I saw would go with one of these two, depending on the situation.
  • Avicebron2 hours ago
    Refreshingly doesn't feel like AI. If someone asked me "what does software engineering look like", I would point to this.
  • ge96an hour ago
    This is cool, learned of two new file extensions: .tle and .parquet
  • ricardobeatan hour ago
    Are most of their currently operating satellites servicing Flock - the US surveillance company? Or is it just a naming accident?
    • mandevilan hour ago
      Flock is Planet Labs name for the mega-constellation of imaging satellites made up of 3U cubesats known as Doves- hence the name for the full constellation. It has nothing to do with the automated license plate reader company.
    • marklitan hour ago
      Their satellites have nothing to do with the street-level surveillance camera firm.
    • hangonhn43 minutes ago
      The latter I would think. I can see how you can confuse the two. The reason I think otherwise is because you don't name the satellite after one client, especially if you're in the business of selling images/data, not satellites. And a flock of satellites make sense for a name.