How Does Planet Labs Image the Entire Earth Every Day?

Will Marshall says Planet Labs images the entire Earth every day by shrinking satellites from the size of a double-decker bus, automating how they are built, and launching many more of them at lower cost. The result is the first fleet that has ever done that.

The work happens at a mass satellite manufacturing facility in the middle of San Francisco. The founding team had been at NASA Ames, just down the road near Mountain View, before moving into the city. Production there is far more automated, and the smaller satellites show up in the background of the factory tour. The first set grew to over 100 satellites, the first big-ish constellation. Starlink is a bigger constellation now.

In the end it is an information business. Planet Labs sells the information collected about the planet so people can make smarter decisions, whether for agriculture to improve crop yields, for security, for threats around the planet, or for disaster response.