Albedo presents observations of Earth up close and personal from very low Earth orbit

Satellite imagery startup Albedo is preparing for its up-close debut.

The first Albedo satellite will land in orbit next spring, and the corporate goals to upend the business Earth remark industry with its novel approach and ultra-high-resolution cameras.

The satellite, called Clarity, will go to very low Earth orbit (VLEO) as part of the joint SpaceX Transporter-13 mission. This mission is currently scheduled to launch no sooner than February 2025, so this time next yr the primary Albedo satellite ought to be in orbit.

Albedo moreover announced seven customers which has reserved some of its imagery work for Clarity, including satellite image broker SkyFi and German utility Open Grid Europe.

“It’s a tight schedule,” said Albedo CEO Topher Haddad. “This is the primary time we’re publicly publishing a mock-up of the satellite. I feel so much of people probably think we’re a relatively small satellite, however it’s quite a posh robotic system with a big aperture telescope and quite powerful capabilities. Much of this schedule was primarily related to the custom technology we developed to support the high resolution system in VLEO.

The startup is developing a first-of-its-kind spacecraft capable of taking extremely high-resolution images operating in very low Earth orbit – the photographs are so sharp, the corporate says, that they’ve historically been the exclusive domain of U.S. defense and intelligence organizations.

The company says it can give you the chance to sell 10-centimeter-per-pixel images to business and government customers at unprecedentedly low prices due to its unique – and quite large – satellite bus. (An image with a resolution of 10 centimeters signifies that each pixel covers an area of ​​the earth measuring 10 centimeters by 10 centimeters. The largest optical imaging providers today collect images at a resolution of 30 centimeters, which is algorithmically refined to fifteen centimeters.)

Satellites that do collect data at a 10-centimeter resolution typically operate at higher orbital altitudes, equivalent to low Earth orbit, and some estimates put each satellite within the billions of dollars to supply and launch. Low Earth orbit is usually defined because the orbital band at an altitude of about 2,000 kilometers, while VLEO is between 250 and 450 kilometers.

When all is alleged and done, the Albedo satellites shall be the scale of fridges, which is significantly larger than many other business Earth remark satellites that currently operate even further from Earth. Creating such heavy satellites seems counterintuitive – you’d think that to counteract increased atmospheric drag it might be needed to make the satellites as light as possible – but Haddad said in a recent interview that the corporate is capable of counteract that drag by utilizing ultra-efficient electric propulsion and specific decisions design issues, equivalent to mounting solar panels on the spacecraft as a substitute of spreading them across two wings.

“Usually you install (solar panels) because you can generate more power that way, but we had to minimize the cross-sectional area so that the mass and the electric drive act to give us the counteracting drag portion,” Haddad explained.

As the corporate moves toward launching hardware into orbit, Kathryn Tobey has been named its first independent director on the now six-member board. Tobey worked for 34 years at Lockheed Martin, where she eventually became vice chairman of its $3 billion Space, Special Programs business line. (Before founding Albedo, Haddad left his job at Lockheed Martin while working on some of the identical systems). This division handled high-tech national security work, including classified projects – exactly the sort of clientele Albedo goals to achieve on the federal government side.

“He brings both of these superpowers, which I think is quite rare, both a deep technical understanding, not only of satellites, but our unique niche of high-performance imaging satellites, and relationships with national security customers and an understanding of this mission very okay well,” Haddad said.