Planet acquired the satellites with their 2017 purchase from Google of Terra Bella (formerly Skybox Imaging), a company founded in 2009.

Two distinct markets for imagery and video were foreseen: various environmental applications, including monitoring agriculture, forestry, and other natural resources; and asset tracking, where spacecraft images help customers monitor various facilities for changes.

See an overview of the SkySat and PlanetScope missions in this infographic:

The SkySat satellites are based on the CubeSat concept, using inexpensive automotive grade electronics and fast commercially available processors, but scaled up to approximately the size of a minifridge.

Each SkySat-C generation satellite is three-axis stabilised and agile enough to slew between different targets of interest. Each satellite has four thrusters for orbital control, along with four reaction wheels and three magnetic torquers for attitude control.

15 SkySat satellites of the constellation are in a Sun-synchronous near-circular orbit with an altitude of 450 km. The remaining six SkySat satellites are on an inclined, not Sun-synchronous orbit with an altitude of 400 km.

The SkySat Mission Operations (SMO) team is responsible for the safe and stable space segment operations for Planet's 21 SkySat satellites. This includes all satellite operations as well as the development of tools, processes, and systems for these operations. SMO supports ground station operations, image collection planning, radiometric calibration, software development, and mission systems engineering. SMO takes ownership of the satellite immediately after launch and is responsible for all commissioning, nominal, maintenance, special, and contingency operations during the satellite's life.

The SkySat ground system supports satellite commanding and real-time telemetry display, analysis, and trending in a 100% web browser-based solution. The majority of planning, analysis, and production tools used operationally are also browser-based. Telemetry storage and computation occurs on centralised servers.

Learn more about SkySat from these related websites:

• SkySat on the eoPortal (The information provided is sourced and updated by external entities. For further details, please consult our Terms and Conditions page.)