You guys with this project should talk to/email Will Marshall https://www.planet.com/
He may be of help with your plan, using their mini satellites. I’m sure you guys can come to an agreement as you are both doing something to help the people of this planet. It would be a great partnership and good for what you guys are trying to achieve between both Outernet and Planet Labs, working together would benefit both companies.
I’m not sure, just a thought I put together for you guys to consider.
Pardon me, but what part of their project would be useful for the outernet project? If i’m not mistaken their goal is to be able to have a live satellite feed of the earth.
You’re missing the bigger picture, the micro-satellites are cheaper then using bigger satellites. So wouldn’t they be able to partner up to make those micro satellites into senders of information for the Lantern?
Possibly. I didn’t see anything about them being interested in having other functionality in the imaging satellites.
Also, i think the reason they’re using the satellites they are using currently is because they’re not fiscally in a position to create their own satellite network.
But Outernet could hit them up to see if they could help create micro satellites that benefit them. I only posted about this idea because they are both companies that want to help people, so wouldn’t it be smart to work together.
That’s where a whole bunch of micro satellites would come in, if they could create these micro satellites that are cheaper and do the job that they need then they wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of bigger satellites
From an altruistic (read: everyone helping everyone) point of view this is true. I think you would find it difficult to make work from a business perspective.
@Nitelight From the perspective of cost per daily global MB, big satellites are way, way cheaper. The reason that little satellites are interesting is because we would control our own infrastructure, which is important for an independent media service.
I’ve been in touch with several of the members of the Planet Labs team. We both respect each other’s work, but there is not yet a lot of business alignment. Also, their constellation is not that suitable for a communications service, since it’s all in one orbital plane. It’s ok as one of the channels, but as it stands, it could never be the only channel (but nothing will ever be the only channel; agility in diversity).