Mapping the Whole Earth
Mapping the Whole Earth
Chris Boshuizen Planet Labs Inc., San Francisco, California The "Blue Marble" photograph taken of the Earth by the Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972 gave us a sense of the fragility of the planet we live on, and in the early 1980s that picture came to symbolize the green movement. Since that first full image of the Earth was taken, many space missions have been launched adding to the corpus of knowledge we have about our planet. However, many interesting events go unnoticed on the planet, and in this time of heightened awareness of climate change, our increasing population and rising urban pressure, there is urgent need for a more comprehensive understanding of our changing planet. Planet Labs will be launching a constellation of Earth imaging satellites to provide global, high resolution, high revisit-rate imaging of the entire planet. Just like the Blue Marble gave us a sense of responsibility for our planet, we hope that the data we will collect will compel us to action, and give us real time feedback as to the results of our efforts.
Chris Boshuizen is a co-founder and the CTO of Planet Labs Inc.
Planet Labs will provide frequently updated maps of the entire planet by launching its own constellation of Earth imaging spacecraft. Prior to this, Chris was an Innovator in Residence at NASA Ames Research Center. There he worked on a variety of projects including founding Singularity University, was test director for the Lunar Lander Hover Test Vehicle, forged a variety of commercialization agreements for lander technology, and created the PhoneSat project, which successfully placed four smartphone-based satellites in orbit. Chris received his Ph.D. in Physics and BSc. with honours from the University of Sydney, finding new science in archival data of the Voyager spacecrafts’ tour of the solar system. During his PhD he also helped design one of the most precise space-based optical instruments as a potential precursor mission to the Kepler space telescope.
Chris Boshuizen Planet Labs Inc., San Francisco, California The "Blue Marble" photograph taken of the Earth by the Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972 gave us a sense of the fragility of the planet we live on, and in the early 1980s that picture came to symbolize the green movement. Since that first full image of the Earth was taken, many space missions have been launched adding to the corpus of knowledge we have about our planet. However, many interesting events go unnoticed on the planet, and in this time of heightened awareness of climate change, our increasing population and rising urban pressure, there is urgent need for a more comprehensive understanding of our changing planet. Planet Labs will be launching a constellation of Earth imaging satellites to provide global, high resolution, high revisit-rate imaging of the entire planet. Just like the Blue Marble gave us a sense of responsibility for our planet, we hope that the data we will collect will compel us to action, and give us real time feedback as to the results of our efforts.
Chris Boshuizen is a co-founder and the CTO of Planet Labs Inc.
Planet Labs will provide frequently updated maps of the entire planet by launching its own constellation of Earth imaging spacecraft. Prior to this, Chris was an Innovator in Residence at NASA Ames Research Center. There he worked on a variety of projects including founding Singularity University, was test director for the Lunar Lander Hover Test Vehicle, forged a variety of commercialization agreements for lander technology, and created the PhoneSat project, which successfully placed four smartphone-based satellites in orbit. Chris received his Ph.D. in Physics and BSc. with honours from the University of Sydney, finding new science in archival data of the Voyager spacecrafts’ tour of the solar system. During his PhD he also helped design one of the most precise space-based optical instruments as a potential precursor mission to the Kepler space telescope.
