Author Topic: Planet Labs earth imaging satellites  (Read 91165 times)

Offline Fuji

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #100 on: 02/28/2014 01:35 am »
CubeSats and Robotics on Station Thursday   February 27, 2014
http://www.nasa.gov/content/cubesats-and-robotics-on-station-thursday/

Two sets of Nanoracks CubeSats were deployed late Wednesday and early Thursday from a deployer mechanism on the Multi-Purpose Experiment Platform attached to the Kibo robotic arm, leaving just two more launches to go of the 33 CubeSats that were delivered to the station in January by Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus cargo ship. The latest CubeSats were sent on their way at 8:50 p.m. EST Wednesday and 2:40 a.m. Thursday. CubeSats are a class of research spacecraft called nanosatellites and have small, standardized sizes to reduce costs. Two final batches of CubeSats are set for deployment at 11:20 p.m. Thursday and 2:30 a.m. Friday, but more are scheduled to be delivered to the station on the second Orbital commercial resupply mission in May.

Offline jcm

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #101 on: 02/28/2014 02:38 am »
I assume that the Peruvian 1U that was delivered on the recent Progress will have to wait, maybe until May? Or are they going to do a special deploy for it, perhaps.
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Offline Fuji

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #102 on: 02/28/2014 03:30 am »
I assume that the Peruvian 1U that was delivered on the recent Progress will have to wait, maybe until May? Or are they going to do a special deploy for it, perhaps.

Anik answered here.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33015.msg1159809#msg1159809
Quote
It will be launched manually by cosmonauts during ISS Russian EVA-38 in August.

Offline jcm

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #103 on: 02/28/2014 03:15 pm »
Congratulations to PlanetLabs and NanoRacks.

All the sats have now been deployed - 28 for PlanetLabs and 5 for Peru, 2 Lithuanian groups, Ardusat, SouthernSky
 
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Jonathan McDowell
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Offline Comga

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #104 on: 02/28/2014 06:34 pm »
And two more must have been deployed sometime today - they have just been cataloged
(snip)
All the sats are in approx 409 x 416 km x 51.65 deg orbit.
The first sat ejected, Flock 1-1/39512, has now decayed to 400 x 407 km.

The Difference between the mean altitude of the newly deployed naosats and the mean altitude for Flock 1-1 is ~9 km. I know it is an imprecise reference but Heavens-Above shows that the ISS has descended about 2 km since the first deployment on Feb 11.

Does that mean that the average altitude of the nanosats has decayed by ~11 km since deployment 18 days ago?
Can we use that to estimate the orbital lifetimes?
I thought that the time to descend by 20km was about half the lifetime, as that's supposed to be the scale altitude over which residual pressure doubles. Is that too pessimistic?

edit: typo
« Last Edit: 02/28/2014 06:34 pm by Comga »
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Offline InfraNut2

Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #105 on: 03/01/2014 03:37 pm »
Congratulations NanoRacks and JAXA on successfully completing the deployments!  :)  And also PlanetLabs and the other satellite owners.

We are approaching the end of live coverage. I expect the final original report(s) on Monday together with some reporting in articles and such during the week.

Meanwhile I have gathered some additional reports and pictures for you:

Quote
Planet Labs @planetlabs · 28. feb.

Big cheers at @planetlabs office today as we watch the final two of 28 Flock 1 satellites deployed from ISS! Flock 1 complete.

By lucky coincidence astronauts Samantha Cristoforetti (ESA) and Terry Wirts (NASA) were training in Japan with CubeSat deploy and related stuff at just the right time to observe it done in reality at Tsukuba. See Samantha's log entry.

Quote
Laurynas Maciulis @orbitronas · 28. feb.

Thank You @NanoRacks! Great job! @LituanicaSat is in space and we think it works!

also reports on Cubesat deploys (like last week).

edit: typos & such

edit: Also: videos of the final deploy was posted on the NanoRacks thread by Danderman
« Last Edit: 03/01/2014 04:36 pm by InfraNut2 »

Offline pericynthion

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #106 on: 03/02/2014 05:11 am »
Does that mean that the average altitude of the nanosats has decayed by ~11 km since deployment 18 days ago?
Can we use that to estimate the orbital lifetimes?

1. The Space Track TLEs are extremely noisy at the moment
2. Ballistic coefficients of the satellites aren't constant
3. Their behavior during commissioning phase isn't necessarily representative of what it will be operationally
4. Space weather and upper atmospheric density is highly variable and difficult to predict

So you're probably going to need a longer run of data in order to accurately gauge lifetime.  Of course, if you wait long enough you'll have a very unambiguous answer :P

Offline InfraNut2

Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #107 on: 03/05/2014 05:58 pm »
Wrapping it up with the final daily reports and a couple of articles.

NanoRacks Press release:

 - NanoRacks’ Hardware Successfully Deploys Historic Set of Satellites from the International Space Station

NASA PR article about the recent cubesat deploys:

 - It's a March of the CubeSats as Space Station Deployment Continues

Final daily report excerpts:

Quote from: ISS Daily Summary Report – 02/27/14
Cube Satellite (CubeSat) Operations:  Four more CubeSats were successfully launched overnight by JAXA Robotic Flight Controllers from two NanoRacks CubeSat Deployers (NRCSDs).  The remaining 7 CubeSats will be deployed overnight.  CubeSat format satellites are launched from the ISS for a variety of commercial and national customers.

Quote from: ISS Daily Summary Report – 02/28/14
Cube Satellite (CubeSat) Operations:  Overnight the final 7 CubeSats were successfully launched by JAXA Robotic Flight Controllers from two NanoRacks CubeSat Deployers (NRCSDs).  Two Dove CubeSats and ArduSat-2, LitSat-1, LituanicaSat-1, UaPSat-1, and SkyCube CubeSats were launched.  A total of 17 CubeSats have been deployed from the NRCSDs this week. The NRCSDs and Multi-Purpose Experiment Platform (MPEP) were then returned by the JEMRMS to the JEM Airlock Slide Table and brought back into the JEM.  CubeSat format satellites are launched from the ISS for a variety of commercial and national customers.

Quote from: ISS Daily Summary Report – 03/03/14
Cube Satellite (CubeSat) Closeout Operations:  Today, Flight Engineer (FE) 6 Wakata and FE-3 Hopkins closed out the Nanorack Cubesat Deployer (NRCSD) operations.  This morning the slide table was moved from the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Airlock into the JEM Pressurized Module (JPM).  Later, the crew removed the empty Nanoracks Cubesat Deployers (NRCSDs) and Multi-Purpose Experiment Platform (MPEP)  from the slidetable and stowed them.  The slidetable was moved back into the Airlock.

So thats it from me on this thread unless I come across some late article or some such I want to share.

Offline InfraNut2

Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #108 on: 03/11/2014 06:09 am »
The NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer Program-1 highlights video was too good not to share. Surprised no-one else have posted it already.



The bit that looks like the picture below probably is from the first deploy that I saw live on the ISS ustream channel. (The picture is a screencap from the live webcast back then).

edit: cross-posted it on the nanoracks thread too.
« Last Edit: 03/11/2014 06:28 am by InfraNut2 »

Offline Skyrocket

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #109 on: 03/13/2014 01:02 pm »
PlanetLabs has a new website (http://www.planet.com/) with a video on their constellation and some images of deployed Dove satellites (note the artwork on the side of the satellite body and the backside of the solar arrays)

Video:
« Last Edit: 03/13/2014 01:42 pm by Skyrocket »

Offline Silmfeanor

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #110 on: 03/17/2014 07:49 am »
There is an article in the new york times today about Planet Labs - it includes a nice video. Worth a read and a watch.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/technology/start-ups-aim-to-conquer-space-market.html?hp&_r=0

Smallish error:
Quote
While the Planet Labs staff ate pancakes that morning in February, two shoebox-size nine-pound pods made in the company’s unconventional factory floated from the International Space Station toward a polar orbit of Earth. Ten hours later, two more were released.
:P

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #111 on: 03/17/2014 03:11 pm »
There is an article in the new york times today about Planet Labs - it includes a nice video. Worth a read and a watch.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/technology/start-ups-aim-to-conquer-space-market.html?hp&_r=0

Smallish error:
Quote
While the Planet Labs staff ate pancakes that morning in February, two shoebox-size nine-pound pods made in the company’s unconventional factory floated from the International Space Station toward a polar orbit of Earth. Ten hours later, two more were released.
:P
Well, closer to a polar orbit than an equatorial one!
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

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Offline gosnold

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #112 on: 03/17/2014 07:57 pm »
Does anybody know the swath width and memory capacity of these birds?

Offline Danderman

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #113 on: 10/29/2014 01:26 am »
From Planet Labs:


Space is hard: Antares rocket failure

Today the Antares rocket on a mission to the ISS failed. The rocket was carrying our 26 Flock 1d satellites. Importantly, mission control confirmed that there are no injuries.

This was the 5th launch of the Antares rocket—and all relatively new rockets have a higher risk of explosion. While the previous launches have been successful, there is always a chance of failure—especially a system engaging in a mission as complex as rendezvous and docking with the ISS.

Space is hard and our hearts go out to our fellow space innovators on that launch: Planetary Resources Arkyd 3 and the University of Texas and JPL Radiometer Atmospheric CubeSat Experiment (RACE).

Planet Labs understands the risks of launch. Our approach to mitigate these risks is to deploy our fleets of satellites on multiple launch vehicles, from multiple vendors. We also place more satellites in orbit than we require in each launch so that if satellites fail in orbit we ensure continuity.

The beauty of this approach is the very fact that this event is not catastrophic to our company. Our eggs were not all in one basket.

We’re lucky to have already launched 71 Doves in 18 months on 6 launch vehicles; an unprecedented rate of development. We have been fortunate to have these, more opportunities than most.

This mishap does not deter us from our mission!

Offline Danderman

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #114 on: 11/20/2014 02:39 pm »
Doves Hitch Ride with SpaceX

On October 28, Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket failed on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). This was a difficult event and our condolences went out to all those affected. That said, since the failure, the response by those affected has been nothing short of amazing: Orbital Sciences stated that they will fulfill their NASA contract obligations by the end of 2015; Planetary Resources intends to be flying in space in September; and in just 9 days, Planet Labs built and delivered two spacecraft to Houston, and has received a preliminary go-ahead from NASA to manifest the satellites on SpaceX-5.

Let me state that again: within 9 days a spacecraft launch was preliminarily manifested, 2 satellites were built, tested and delivered.

For our engineering team, perhaps the greatest disappointment of the loss of Flock 1D on the Antares rocket was not being able to test all the advances we packed into those 26 satellites. Fortunately, there are consistent and frequent cargo missions going to service the ISS orbit; in fact, about 15% of global launch capacity serves the ISS. Therefore, within hours of the launch failure, we were working with NanoRacks, our launch platform partner for the ISS, to coordinate with NASA to get us re-manifested on a cargo mission as soon as possible. The next available launch opportunity was SpaceX-5 launching in mid December 2014.

On the evening of the launch failure, our team split into two: one to immediately start building replacement Flock 1D satellites and the other to work the logistical and regulatory process to make it possible. Last Sunday, a mere 9 days after the launch failure, we shipped two spacecraft (now known as Flock 1D’) to NanoRacks’ shop in Houston. Also within this period of time, NanoRacks obtained the go-ahead from NASA’s ISS program office for a late load of the 2 Flock 1D’ satellites onto the SpaceX-5 launch vehicle.

I believe this example of shipping Flock 1D’ is a glimpse at the future of aerospace. This is possible due to all the actors having a shared incentive – from the regulators, launch vehicle providers, service providers and the spacecraft manufacturers. In space, each element is very difficult to get right by itself, and it takes an ecosystem to deliver a capability this quickly. Central to making this possible was developing our own custom design of the satellite that is free from specialty suppliers (thus decreasing lead time) and having a spacecraft design optimized for manufacturing and automated testing. Moreover, we certainly couldn’t have done it without the collaboration from NanoRacks and support from NASA, and we thank them for their support. This is a great example for how to create a resilient aerospace ecosystem.

At Planet Labs, we pride ourselves on agile aerospace development. Building, testing and scheduling 2 satellites in 9 days is a perfect example of this agility, and we can’t wait to watch the 98th and 99th Dove built, to launch into space and deploy into orbit. Space is definitely hard, but space is also very thrilling.

Offline nadreck

Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #115 on: 04/09/2015 07:43 pm »
More press on Planet Labs: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6231/172.full not much detail on the upcoming flock 1e capabilities though
It is all well and good to quote those things that made it past your confirmation bias that other people wrote, but this is a discussion board damnit! Let us know what you think! And why!

Offline gongora

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #116 on: 07/01/2016 09:34 pm »
Planet should continue to be a frequent customer for secondary payloads...

Quote
SAT-MOD-20150802-00053 E S2912
Granted in Part/ Deferred in Part Effective Date: 06/15/2016
Modification 06/15/2016 - 02/28/2029
Planet Labs Inc.
Nature of Service: Earth Exploration Satellite Service
On June 15, 2016, the Satellite Division granted in part and deferred in part, with conditions, the application of Planet Labs Inc. to modify its
authorization to construct, deploy and operate a system of technically identical non-geostationary orbit Earth Exploration Satellite Service
satellites. The Satellite Division deferred action on Planet Labs' request to include in its authorization satellites that are the subject of a Petition
to Deny by ORBCOMM. It also deferred action on transmissions of remote sensing and telemetry data to certain earth stations in the
8025-8400 MHz frequency band. The Satellite Division otherwise granted Planet Labs' application. Specifically, Planet Labs was authorized to
construct, deploy, and operate up to 600 technically identical NGSO EESS satellites in addition to those satellites already deployed and currently
operational. The satellites will be deployed at altitudes between 350 km and 660 km
and will transmit remote sensing and telemetry data to fixed
earth stations in the 8025-8400 MHz (space-to-Earth) frequency band, receive command signals in the 2025-2110 MHz (Earth-to-space)
frequency band, and may use the 401-402 MHz (space-to-earth) and 449.75-450.25 MHz (Earth-to-space) frequency bands for early-phase and
emergency-backup telemetry, tracking, and command operations, as well as for ranging and orbit determination on a non-emergency basis
throughout the mission lifetime.

Offline Ohsin

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #117 on: 09/20/2016 11:39 am »
"Doves"   :-X

Quote
CONTRACT ANNOUNCEMENT
NGA awards contract to Planet Labs
Sept. 12, 2016
 
SPRINGFIELD, Va. — The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency awarded a contract subscribing to imagery products and services provided by Planet Labs, Inc. of San Francisco, California.
 
The contract allows the Department of Defense and intelligence community to access Planet Labs’ global imagery content, updated every fifteen days. The introductory contract includes a seven-month period of performance and the total value of the contract is $20,000,000. The effective date is Sept. 12, 2016.
 
The global scope of coverage and high temporal frequency of collection from Planet labs will provide NGA with new data sources to support its many missions.

https://www.nga.mil/Partners/BusinessOpportunities/Pages/Default.aspx
"Well, three cheers to Sharma, but our real baby is INSAT."

Offline gongora

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #118 on: 10/28/2017 11:27 pm »
Quote
SAT-AMD-20171025-00144 E S2912
Date Filed: 10/25/2017 18:49:46:46300
Planet Labs Inc.

Planet Labs Inc. amends its previously submitted request for modification of its authorization for an Earth Exploration Satellite Service (EESS) system. IBFS File No. SAT-MOD-20170713-00103 (filed July 13, 2017). Specifically, Planet seeks to modify three of its authorized non-geostationary orbit satellites by removing the imaging camera and replacing it with a nano propulsion system to be used in a technology demonstration. The satellites will be deployed to orbital apogee altitudes of no greater than 550 kilometers with a 97.4 degree inclination...

Quote
Other than replacing the imaging camera with a propulsion system, the satellite is technically identical to the other Flock satellites. It shares the same design and manufacture of the structural, power, avionics, and communications aspects of the Flock satellites and shares the same associated earth stations for the uplink and downlink of space operations data and propulsion system performance data. There are no changes to the frequencies and concept of operations for each of the bands as proposed in the Modification.

The nano propulsion system is known as Indium Field Emission Electric Propulsion. This propulsion system consists of a 250-gram cylinder of indium, associated heaters, ion generator mechanism, and beam neutralizer mechanism. Thrust is generated by the acceleration of ions via an applied electric field between an emitter crown and extractor electrode. The expected thrust is 350 micro-Newtons (uN), and there is a total of 5000 Newton-second total impulse capability for up to 1415 m/s velocity change for the 5 kg Dove Turbo satellite.

Offline gongora

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Re: Planet Labs nano-sat earth imaging satellites
« Reply #119 on: 11/07/2017 09:49 pm »
FCC File Number: SAT-AMD-20171106-00151
Quote
Planet  Labs  Inc.  (Planet)  respectfully  requests  to  amend  its  previously submitted request  to  modify  the  authorization  (Modification)  for  the  Planet  Earth  Exploration Satellite  Service  (EESS)  system  (FCC  Call  Sign  S2912,  a.k.a.  “Flock”),  as  amended.1
Specifically,  Planet  requests  authority  to:

● Modify  up  to  three  (3)  of  its  authorized  satellites  of  the  Flock  constellation  to  add an  Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver  system  to  the  satellites  to demonstrate  the  capability  of  the  Planet  Dove  satellites  to  receive  the  AIS  1 (161.9625MHz  –  161.9875MHz)  and  AIS  2  (162.0125MHz  –  162.0375MHz) channels.   Planet  currently  has  planned  only  one  satellite  demonstration  but requests  additional  authority  in  the  event  the  planned  satellite  fails  on­orbit,  fails to  reach  orbit,  or  additional  demonstrations  or  testing  become  necessary.

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