What Spy-Satellite Companies Can Teach NASA About Climate Change
SAN FRANCISCO—The sky has filled with eyes, and NASA is starting to notice.
Over the past several years, venture-funded start-ups have hurled hundreds of inexpensive satellites into orbit. For-profit companies have used smartphone technology to make compact satellites that look down at Earth and monitor its every oceanic gurgle, erupting volcano, or forest conflagration. Hundreds of these satellites might gaze down at the same time; they are organized in what are called (rather poetically) “constellations.”
NASA has now taken heed of these new arrangements. Earlier this year, it asked 36 scientists to figure out whether imagery and data from three satellite companies could be put to serious scientific use. On Thursday, the San Francisco–based start-up announced that it is
