Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has launched a new industry called Terra Bella that develops satellites. By launching more satellites, the company aims to analyze patterns on Earth.
Terra Bella is the former Skybox Imaging company that was acquired by Google in 2014 for $500 million. The Google company will not only get a new name, but will also broaden its activities. The goal is to convert raw data from the satellites using Google’s expertise and technology, such as machine learning, into data that can ‘help people and organizations make decisions’.
Currently, the Google company has two satellites of its own in space. By expanding that number, Terra Bella wants to make it possible to take a ‘living snapshot’ of any location on Earth within hours. The company says it is developing “more than a dozen” satellites, scheduled to be launched in the coming years.
According to the company, the satellites can be used to visualize environmental disasters, for example. For example, Terra Bella shows as an example how it could assist the relief effort with HD video images of an earthquake in Japan.
Terra Bella says it is working on a completely new class of satellites that will make it possible to capture high-resolution images at a fraction of the price of traditional satellites. The satellites the company is working on weigh less than 100kg, measure 60x60x80cm and are capable of taking color and near-infrared images at a resolution of 90cm per pixel.
The company says it uses a telescope with a mirror made of silicon carbide, which is combined with an array of cmos image sensors equipped with a proprietary filter. The satellites take several pictures per second, which are sent directly back to Earth, where they are merged into a large, high-resolution image
Terra Bella claims that the technology makes it possible for the first time to make high-resolution video images of the Earth with a commercial satellite. From an altitude of 600km, the technology can make videos with 30fps and a resolution of 1.1 meters per pixel.
In the future, the company also wants to equip satellites with propulsion modules, so that they can be placed in geostationary orbit around the earth. Because the satellites in their orbit appear to be stationary relative to the Earth’s surface, images with an even higher resolution can be made.