This is really interesting and I have no doubt the applications are gigantic across a whole suite of industries.
I do however have a question about your final statement around creating a commoditised market for high-res imagery. How do you see this evolving over time on what is essentially privatised satellite infrastructure?
You note the parallel with GPS - but this is a 'free spinoff' developed by and for the US govt (and still bankrolled by the US taxpayer) rather than something owned and run by private enterprise. GPS was never developed explicitly with profit in mind. In GPS, the end user also 'owns' their gps traces, in that they can choose to share them with 3rd parties freely. Additionally, there is no value discrimination in gps - all traces are treated the same by the infrastructure owners regardless of how valuable they are (no one is charged more if they use the gps on their phone to enable lots of apps vs someone who only uses it for a single thing). Imagery data on the other hand is much more likely to have different value depending on what is being imaged (there is more value in an image of a busy port than there is of a random patch of empty ocean).
My feeling is that the high res imagery market right now feels more like the market for satellite automatic identification system (AIS) data used in maritime. AIS data is expensive because it is gate-kept by a relatively small number of satellite companies who charge a premium for access and carefully guard how that data is used by onward parties - completely unlike GPS.
As in AIS, because a small number of imagery companies will not only own the infrastructure, but also the images produced by that infrastructure, I'm not sure how it can be commoditised in the same way GPS has been - unless you plan to charge a low flat fee for essentially all images regardless of what they depict and what they are used for?
Great points! The GPS analogy is definitely not 1-to-1. Our main point with the analogy is this: when GPS technology was developed, there was no foresight of applications like Tinder, Uber, Pokemon Go, which all would not be possible without GPS. So in that sense, we expect that if we are able to push satellite imagery in the direction of becoming a commodity, this will unlock applications we have no foresight of today. SVB & Space Capital released a great report on this idea called The GPS Playbook
While it’s definitely true GPS is a “free spinoff” of a government service (ie not really free), it is accessed by developers through a platform you purchase that translate that GPS signal into useable data (ie your phone, your car, other things you purchase of which GPS is “available”). In that lens, we foresee a similar use for satellite imagery data, gathered through a platform, ours or other satellite service providers, and made available to other users. The cost of entry for utilizing GPS is hidden under these platforms and service taxes, and we look to develop a low cost of entry for utilizing satellite imagery for platforms to use and burgeon; hence the example of things the engineers building GPS never expected their data would be used for! I’ve spotted a few commenters on here who are hoping to use low-cost imagery for just that.
Doubtful - OP notes in another comment that they will get 2/3 revisits to an area of interest per day - so every 8-12hrs ish.
Real time following (a la Will Smith in Enemy of the State) from satellite imagery remains fictional at present.
The balance of coverage vs resolution is largely dependent on satellite constellation altitude. Higher altitude = more coverage but worse resolution. More satellites also gives better coverage, but adds cost. To get enough coverage for streaming at high enough resolution for tracking an individual person needs a) an infeasibly large satellite constellation b) improvements to image resolution so higher altitudes (and thus better coverage with fewer satellites) c) guaranteed clear skies (for imagery data at least).
Exactly. Lots of trade-offs in remote sensing. We're bullish on SAR to clean up on monitoring applications, due to the ability to see through clouds and at night. As that plays out, high res optical will be even more important for context when SAR detects some sort of change (then optical can be used to see what caused the change).
You note the parallel with GPS - but this is a 'free spinoff' developed by and for the US govt (and still bankrolled by the US taxpayer) rather than something owned and run by private enterprise. GPS was never developed explicitly with profit in mind. In GPS, the end user also 'owns' their gps traces, in that they can choose to share them with 3rd parties freely. Additionally, there is no value discrimination in gps - all traces are treated the same by the infrastructure owners regardless of how valuable they are (no one is charged more if they use the gps on their phone to enable lots of apps vs someone who only uses it for a single thing). Imagery data on the other hand is much more likely to have different value depending on what is being imaged (there is more value in an image of a busy port than there is of a random patch of empty ocean).
My feeling is that the high res imagery market right now feels more like the market for satellite automatic identification system (AIS) data used in maritime. AIS data is expensive because it is gate-kept by a relatively small number of satellite companies who charge a premium for access and carefully guard how that data is used by onward parties - completely unlike GPS.
As in AIS, because a small number of imagery companies will not only own the infrastructure, but also the images produced by that infrastructure, I'm not sure how it can be commoditised in the same way GPS has been - unless you plan to charge a low flat fee for essentially all images regardless of what they depict and what they are used for?