Dove Satellite - Observing Earth With A Cubesat

I paid a visit to Planet, they're one of my 'neighbours' in San Francisco's SOMA district. Their business is planetary imaging and they've launched over 100 Dove Cubesats which are built around the largest possible camera you can fit in a cubesat.
Find out more at their website:
www.planet.com/

[@ultrastoat3298]

Sometimes you forget how important quality audio is until you don't have it.

[@codacoder]

By now we should have neural nets that can fix that in postprocessing

[@will3346]

I love just looking at google maps so seeing a change every day would be amazing!

[@mrskwid1]

+haeblcldoe tahbecrdee we all miss that show.

[@caijones156]

+haeblcldoe tahbecrdee at least it wasn't over used like the Simpsons.

[@will3346]

Cai Jones I think this past season of the simpsons was pretty good. Not as good as the old simpsons but still pretty good. they may be making a comeback

[@cginclude]

quiet meatbag.

[@tehllama42]

You can actually hook up to the Planet API. The value is being able to do GIS on top of it.

[@caijones156]

My ears there dying from the Eco

[@Stelum1000]

Me Brain is dying from your spelling.

[@scottmanley]

yep, sucks that I put my lapel mics in the wrong bag, I had to improvise.

[@Stelum1000]

+Scott Manley haha

[@ThatGuy-nv2wo]

Wow? You met Scott?!?!

[@reedcspurling]

IT'S SPELLED ECHO!

[@LazerLord10]

I'd really like to see the final result of this thing. It sounds so cool!

[@no_man_army3353]

If it's the size of an American luch box then expect an eclipse very soon.

[@alphaadhito]

Haha, that pun tho..

[@amanhaman8568]

lmao

[@bojac6]

Scott, these interviews and the cool real science things are my favorite of your videos. Please keep them coming!

[@L1AM]

What a cool company! Great video

[@scottmanley]

They also have beer in their break room......

[@L1AM]

+Scott Manley satellites and beer, great combo

[@scprivat9519]

+Scott Manley so they are Kerbal Players from the Test Squadron?

[@scprivat9519]

+Scott Manley so they are Kerbal Players from the Test Squadron?

[@caijones156]

I think +Scott Manley should be behind the controls of every rocket that will ever launch, with beer

[@Coneshot]

Thank you Scott and Planet for taking the time to show us this cool tech!

[@calebcothron3556]

wow, this is so freaking cool. Being someone who was studying engineering and now am studying forestry, this tickles all my happy spots. I'm excited for the future.

[@tuskiomisham]

8:38 when the sattelite agency has hackertyper pulled up to look productive.....

[@BlakeClarke]

I'm going to assume it's because they didn't want to have their actual software on screen.

[@choppergamer]

+Jonathan Clarke precisely what I think would be the case

[@tuskiomisham]

Jonathan Clarke if the camera is that blurry, they don't need to hide anything, ha.

[@BlakeClarke]

+Ian Stallings SSH communications doesn't usually contain squiggly brackets and indentation, it looks a lot more like code. Hacker typer uses the Linux kernel (I believe) as text which fits a lot more with the image especially as most people wouldn't choose green and black for serious code editing - dark themes are usually black, white, purple and blue.

[@BlakeClarke]

+Brice Johnson If I had private code that I didn't want the public to have I wouldn't leave it to chance, Scott could have forgotten to blur it.

[@vicviper319]

Now I'm going to use tweak-scale to make teeny- tiny satellites, thanks for the vid!

[@Mmm-ib1jm]

You'l get a cookie from me if you manage to launch enough sats to crash KSP permanently.

[@vicviper319]

Aww now that's not fair. I need to make KSP use more than 16 GB of ram and overwhelm a page-file that's on a fast ssd. Perhaps 100 satellites in LKO. I'll start loading my Space K Phoenix 9's

[@12togo34]

ksp does not use more than 16 gb of ram? i thought if u have 64 bit program on a 64 bit OS it uses all ram available?

[@vicviper319]

Not that, I only have 16GB in my machine. After that Windows starts using the pagefile which should lead to KSP crashing (in theory)

[@12togo34]

Vic Viper i heard u should just disable page file IIRC.

[@ddegn]

And here I thought this was just a (very good) Kerbal gaming channel. This video was fantastic! Thank you very much! That rocket engine at the end was a lot of fun to see. Subscribed.

[@LittleScientist2011]

However its quite a bit more expensive then your avreage lunch box XD

[@hegugs]

a bit

[@paulochikuta330]

actually it's £5.99 from your local supermarket

[@brandonthesteele]

*5.99!?* _(starts shooting with a pair of machine guns that appeared out of nowhere while "Here Comes the Fuzz" blares)_

[@S1baar]

How much does it cost?

[@goranim5015]

I never noticed how small his ears are.

[@brandon3883]

Or perhaps it's that his head is unusually large to encompass that genius brain?

[@kimbleangus7321]

They're proportionally small regardless.

[@brandon3883]

I think you're just antiauribus.

[@ΑΡΗΣΚΟΡΝΑΡΑΚΗΣ]

the cabriolet phenomenon...

[@_Agosto_]

I live 40km away from Amatrice and it was interesting to see the images before and after the main earthquake

[@fighting17chicago]

We need more space tech videos like this!

[@thedemonlord8685]

SCOTTT THIS S THE EARLIEST IVE BEEN TO YOUR SHOW

[@mdrsmeltracy]

Fantastic interview! What a cool product!

[@lhl2500]

The new annotation/link system you use at the end of the video causes the video to skip directly to the end on mobile. It's great that they finally got around to making links that work on mobile devices, to bad it's so buggy.

[@DrewLSsix]

Never had a problem here 😕

[@smokeydops]

13:50 IS THAT A STEPPER MOTOR ON A 1960 VERNIER ENGINE?? AMAZING!!

[@richfiles]

First frogs are photobombing launches, and now Doves too! :P

[@BizarreMonkey1]

Brilliant, great video. Thanks Scott.

[@EscapeMCP]

Same vernier engine here as the pic on the wikipedia article about vernier engines (found whilst looking for more info on the subject). Love the stepper (or more likely servo) motor

[@iseslc]

Awesome, thanks for sharing, Scott!

Thank you for bring that to us, it was awesome!

[@jonasmuller1880]

Cool company! Good questions! Interesting video!

[@_Agosto_]

Very interesting video, Scott!

[@seffundoos]

Love these videos Scott, keep 'em coming!

[@paulchop]

Best t-shirt ever!

[@kickthedonky]

Hey Scott! Really nice to see such interviews! Keep it up, really nice to see what is really going on right now! Just work on the sound a bit ^^ Thanks for the material!!

[@jackmattciz]

Awesome stuff. Can you imagine what can be done with more small sats like that.

[@CrossWindsPat]

Fascinating!! So damn cool man. I gotta get into the aerospace industry some day...

[@danieldomeisen2632]

Can you believe there are still people alive today that honestly believe that the Earth is flat. I am not joking around, these people not only exist but are vocal about their beliefs. Check them out, and feel your mind slowly dissolve from the melting idiocy.

[@scottmanley]

+Daniel Domeisen I don't need to go and check them out they drop by all the time.

[@danieldomeisen2632]

... they do? I was thinking they would avoid you like the plague. I have no idea how these people could think this, there is such a massive volume of facts, science, and just out right reality that goes against their ideas. Some of them even say gravity doesn't exist... Yeah that one hurt my soul. I am honestly stunned they want to deal with you at all, i mean your WHOLE channel is about teaching or Edu-taining with science they say is not real.

[@GoldRaptor00]

+Daniel Domeisen but muh fake gravity

[@danieldomeisen2632]

going to assume that was a joke :) No some people literally think that gravity doesn't exist. like i said, check them out if you want to feel a bit of pain in your soul.

[@SuperSMT]

"Gravity isn't real, the flat Earth is accelerating upward at 9.8 m/s/s." What about the speed of light? Wouldn't the acceleration stop at some point? "Well, uh... the speed of light isn't real either"

[@minorityofthought1306]

This is a good video Scott. There was a lot of great information. But just a bit of constructive criticism. The sound quality was awful. As a polite request, please use a boom mic for future videos in a small space. = )

[@scottmanley]

+Minority of thought I have a bunch of lapel mics, and they ended up in the wrong bag.

[@tehllama42]

I still can't get over the dozen of those that survived - and I machined a lot of parts of the those ones. Ridiculous to think that they'd survive an explosion like that.

[@LoenDebr]

Another very interesting video Scott :)

[@CristianDiPuorto_glockshock]

Great video Scott. I'd love to see more.

[@lsrom9889]

Hello Scott, thanks for great video and please do more like this... Game videos are good but pure science ones are awesome!

[@cubit3223]

awesome company and video!

[@abelzatyko1513]

Wow I have just finished reading The Economist article about Doves

[@L337f33t]

A "flock" of satellites I love it!!

[@TheTechnicalNirl]

That was awesome, hope you get to take us with you on any other techseeing voyages of yours! =)

[@brookssilber]

Cube sat made of cubic octagonal struts?

[@theredstonehive]

...

[@vladimirakopyan4088]

This is great Scott. Any more companies you can tour and peek into their kitchen?

[@ryanfonseca3270]

Why cant I find women like this in AZ.... Her talking about space is such a turn on! lol She is gorgeous also lol not to take away from her obvious smarts

[@texasyojimbo]

This is very cool. I am currently working on a weather balloon project and I always enjoy spending time with the AMSAT team when the annual ham radio convention comes to town. I wonder if I could ever hook up with a team like Planet... better go check LinkedIn....

[@kevin-l7r7p]

That's really neat, had no idea we had baby sats out there

[@biggamer500]

kevin6666123 There should be about 200 of the little buggers who have made orbit. Alot of Universities and private companies have been building them, because they are affordable and can be used for whatever you can imagine.

[@gajbooks]

I bet there are some cool things that you can discover when you own your own satellite fleet.

[@Nodone00]

The content is very interesting I wish the audio was better!! :(

[@MrMrHakketak]

This was a really, really interesting vid, thanks!

[@LikeableGuy]

My university's CubeSat team that I am a part of just received funding, hopefully our launch goes at least a little bit better haha

[@SimonGreensocialmarketing]

Ryan ... a year on how's this going? ..

[@HappyfoxBiz]

can't wait for them to create a subsidiary called Planet Express... it can go hand in hand with Planet Federal, showing companies in the USA that interplanetary delivery for affordable rates is just around the corner

[@DV-13]

Such amount of tech in such small satellite.

[@TheSnero3]

this is awesome!

[@Nails077]

Great! now do an earth sized sat observing a lunchbox!

[@JuanSanchez-rb4qu]

Good video, couple of questions: how much does it cost to launch one of these? and how long they stay in orbit? Also why didn't they put solar panels on the other side of the array? just asking

[@heavygustav]

Great Scott

[@RickyBobby2222]

this is awesome you should do more interviews :)

[@migano2023]

Thank you for this very intersting video! Love'd it.

[@guapgrabber6488]

Scott, could you please do a predictions video on SpaceX's Mars colony architecture? That is if you have predictions at all. also big fan, I've been watching for years.

[@TechyBen]

It survived! Wow.

[@superxico52]

Fires here in Portugal. Didnt know you guys knew of this...

[@coooooooooool1000]

well they have sattelites :D

[@Felix199393]

That is amazing!

[@maiabravo5978]

This is really amazing! I have no idea how they could keep up with 5 terrabytes of data a day... Massive overhauls in infrastructure would have to be made as well as huge investments in servers

[@Mythricia1988]

Eh, 5TB/day is not that crazy if we're talking about "industrial" internet business. KZbin had like an average daily bandwidth useage of 200TB/day back in 2014 or something like that, so probably a lot more than that today.

[@Shaker626]

Modern automated tape drives could easily make this possible at low storage costs.

[@ilovechieftains]

all u guys complaining about the echo.... honestly stop complaining its not that bad

[@pyro854]

Actually it is pretty bad... it was hard for me me to hear sometimes. It's not gonna make me unsub, but it was annoying. Also, I noticed that you avatar pic is the razor gaming logo... do you have permission to use it?

[@NeonGen2000]

I heard every word of the people in the video and English is not even my native language. Also, what are you? The copyright police?

[@crazystuffproduction]

im deaf in one ear and i couldnt understand anything in this vid.

[@crazystuffproduction]

Nope just a type of cancer

[@ilovechieftains]

pyro854 actually its a public picture so, yes I do have permission to use it.

[@gatomaru]

incredibly smart and pretty. :)

[@km5405]

that's amazing - goes to show what technology today can do.

[@AKIPOPOPOPOOON]

Where can I get one of those? XD However, if you made a small orbit capable rocket for carrying cubesats, what would the Dove imaging satellite weigh?

[@rorypenstock1763]

About that vernier motor, it says "truax variant," so maybe that was one of the ones Bob Truax bought.

[@xavierh.5102]

its so cute :3 ill take 7. seriously though cool as hell. you know how much it costs for them to make and launch one?

[@nicosmind3]

Ah the Manley Scotsman has uploaded another video :D

[@IDoNotLikeHandlesOnYT]

Not related to the main topic, but I wonder why that vernier engine has a stepper motor-powered linear actuator on one side. I've never heard of attitude control rockets with thrust vectoring, but that's what this one looks like.

[@BelialsRevenge]

Appreciate the content. As others pointed out, the audio could be better.

[@1Chandranath]

My last name is Dove. Did not know that there was a satellite named after me. :)

[@CuzicanAerospace]

There are few things that can compare to standing next to an actual rocket engine, long enough to really appreciate its design.

[@wesofx8148]

Scott, you probably already know this, but minimizing microphone distance minimizes echo and noise.

[@scottmanley]

You can see the mic was as close as I could get it, I only had the one mic and left my lapel mics in the wrong bag.

[@wesofx8148]

Scott Manley Ah, oh well. I liked the interview and I'm excited about what might come from these satellites :)

[@DanielPierce]

How long does each Dove last usually? I’ve found numbers for LEO cubesats but with them using atmospheric drag I wonder what the average is.

[@richb313]

Fascinating! Cool video Scott. How did you hear about them and get an invite?

[@scottmanley]

+richb313 I asked if I could drop by.

[@richb313]

Thanks

[@Razordreamz]

So from the video these are constantly going up and coming down, what sort of orbit do they have? Do they orbit for a week, month, year? Also since they have no form of thrust how do they control reentry? Do they just burn up or is the final decent calculated to ensure it won't come down in a populated area?

[@biggamer500]

Razordreamz complete burn up. Before each launch, they turn in paper work showing that the sats will deorbit within 6 months and no components will make landfall. The dove program is well proven, so they may have permission to stay longer.

[@caroline61804]

Are they visible from earth? I saw some faded light going by ... diagonal with star movements

[@MrNight-dg1ug]

Legends say, Scott answers, maybe not....you never know....

[@bobsaggat]

I heard an interesting one scot, Can you please make a video about the theories regarding a variable speed of light?

[@scottmanley]

+Jon Deal are there any that stand up to evidence?

[@bobsaggat]

Scott Manley saw in interesting british documentary on it from the year 2000. "Einstein's greatest blunder" it was purported to be variable only in the extreme early days of the universe

[@nicosmind3]

In water it goes 25% slower. And thats it really. In a vacum its constant.

[@erikjohansson4275]

+Jon Deal The speed of light is constant. It may take longer through water because it takes a longer route bevause the light bounces around on the water molecules. Essentially 'zigzagging' through the water.

[@DrewLSsix]

+nicosmind3 Light doesn't slow down, it essentially takes a longer route. More accurately though it is absorbed and re emitted many times over and so appears to be slowed down but the photons are always traveling at the same speed.

[@xWood4000]

Could you take carpets (or something) with you next time against the echo?

[@SurajGupta_3D]

If I am correct ISRO launched their 98, satellites back in the day to made world record?

[@maksimivanov5417]

Would the same kind of optics and satellite work for making photos of space objects?

[@Bigi86]

I didn't quite get it how they spread out the satelites. As far as I understood, up there is a small amount of atmosphere which they can use to spread out the satelites. But won't they become slower and slower over time till they get deeper into the atmosphere and finally fall down?

[@Bigi86]

Ah thanks, looks like I missed this somehow. So how long can they operate? A couple of years till they burn up?

[@ryanadams6616]

Are posigrade and prograde the same thing? I think they would be because they both have retrograde as an antonym

[@scottmanley]

+Ryan Adams actually, the word retrograde appeared first as an antonym for 'direct', prograde appeared later.

[@ryanadams6616]

+Scott Manley I see, thank you.

[@IanHollis84]

Their mission control clock is ticking too slowly and at 8:29 it compensates by jumping from 47 to 49. Please don't tell the flat earthers.

[@Tristramdeliones]

Scott, what about recovery or do they burn up in the atmosphere?

[@biggamer500]

Tristramdeliones burn baby burn.

[@that_llama_in_a_tuxedo4584]

I now have a new thing I want to do. Build a space station then fire cube sats out.

[@bbgun061]

How long will the fleet stay in orbit?

[@tehllama42]

Depending on the orbit, it's a few years (the higher altitude [sun-synchronous] ~97°] inclination orbits run longer than the [ISS inclination ~52°] ones) -Corrected

[@jeeves-2]

I'm pretty sure sun synchronous orbits are higher than the ISS. ISS is 350 kilometers high, SMAP is 690 kilometers, Sentinel 2A is 786 kilometers high. So I think you may have got it mixed up

[@tehllama42]

The majority of the ISS inclination Doves are at a higher altitude than the ISS (~400km), but you're right that the SSO deployments have been primarily at higher altitude.

[@deonnamaseb5349]

Few years being? give the range, lowest to longest period they can stay up please

[@danz409]

if they don't sell this data, how do they get funding for this project. god knows such a thing is crazy expensive

[@scottmanley]

+danz409 they do sell this data.

[@tehllama42]

The data is remarkably valuable, so far with a lot of customers in finance being able to make more timely forecasts in agricultural and energy sectors - obviously with more applications possible too. Planet Labs also (awesomely, I might add) has been making data available for free during disasters and humanitarian crises.

[@biggamer500]

danz409 Countries such as Brazil use images such as these to detect illegal logging.

[@justindie7543]

As many technical things I could talk about, I can't get over the fact that the girl is a GODESS.

[@MrMike-qo9hp]

I want to see Scott try to dock in KSP in a solar orbit without SAS

[@scottmanley]

+MrMike 3658 been there, done that, can't be bothered to find the video.

[@RogerOver9000]

Did they thought to a system to displace them once they reach their end of the job? And how are this small satellites system affecting the orbiting debris/junk situation?

[@scottmanley]

They have no propulsion and their lifetime is a few years because of atmospheric drag.

[@RogerOver9000]

Ahh cool :)

[@peterkotara]

Will they be launching with Rocket Lab?

[@Robbedem]

Is 3 to 5m per pixel not too big for a continuously updated map*? Small roads (walkways, bikerlanes) can be less wide than that... I think that for real succes, they need to achieve a 1m per pixel resolution. Still, I'm sure there are still plenty of uses for those kind of satellites. *EDIT: I mean like google map

[@peterknutsen3070]

I believe I've read that the most advanced spy sats can get 1 meter, maybe half a meter.

[@nealdesai8779]

5m is a yard line in a football field. you can sum up a 5x5 square by one pixel well

[@Mcrawf21]

You must have read something from the 70s. The resolution now is way better than that. Commercial satellites can get .41m and *early* spy satellites (like Corona) could get .3m (1 foot) resolution with a small field of view in the 70s, but routinely got 1m (3ft) with the wide. I can imagine they are much better than that now, but it's all classified. Corona wasn't declassified until 1992.

[@Robbedem]

Mustrum Ridcully I heard that spy satellites from the 90's could already achieve

[@Mcrawf21]

I believe it. Photonics West (an optics trade show) is going on right now in Sand Diego. The NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) always sets up a booth there. You can try asking the dude, but he won't tell you anything. Specifically, any information about resolution of current mission technology is classified top secret. I was there a few years ago and talked to one of their guys about declassified stuff (such as the satellites they gifted to NASA). It's all extremely interesting, but foreboding in a Big Brother type of way as well.

[@YeshuaAgapao]

Wonder if these things could be used around Mars, Jupiter and its Galilean moons, or Saturn & Titan?

[@biggamer500]

YeshuaAgapao yes, several similar size cubesats are scheduled for the moon in 2017, 2 more are going into interplanetary space. They aren't going further yet, because they need a ride, and NASA is picky about sending little boxes with low grade components along with their multibillion dollar rovers.

[@biggamer500]

@@EngineeringTechnikcom Still practically a rounding error compared to Hubble's 1.5 billion and the James Webb's projected 10 billion. Even the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was 720 million. Cube sats are definitely cheap in comparison.

[@TheJttv]

Is is so strange to hear Rocket Labs talked about as this future rocket.

[@TGC40401]

Cool