

UrtheCast’s Ultra HD video camera installed on the ISS [video] - rbx
http://www.urthecast.com/spacewalk

======
jackgavigan
I got curious about how a company had done a deal to put a camera on ISS and
sell the pictures for profit so I started Googling. It looks like they
basically did a deal with RSC Energia and the Russian Federal Space Agency.
However, what's far more interesting is what I found out about how UrtheCast
raised the money to make this happen.

UrtheCast started out as a privately-held (i.e. pre-IPO) startup company
called Earth Video Camera Inc (EVC). EVC raised C$4.5m in 2012 but the bulk of
its funding came last year when it completed a reverse takeover of a publicly-
traded company called Longford Energy.

Longford used to be an oil and gas exploration firm but in 2012 it sold its
sole remaining asset (a 40% share of an oilfield in Iraq) and ended up with a
pile of cash ($25m) but no operating business or significant assets. Instead
of returning the cash to the shareholders (which would presumably have
incurred dividend taxes), Longford's management decided to pursue "acquisition
opportunities"[1]. However, a couple of hedge funds got involved and convinced
the other Longford shareholders that they'd do a better job than the existing
management team who were duly fired and replaced with the hedge funds'
team[2].

Six months later, EVC and Longford announced[3] the reverse takeover, which
was duly completed in June last year - Longford "acquired" EVC by issuing
shares in Longford to UrtheCast's shareholders. Normally, that sort of deal
involves a larger company acquiring a smaller one but, in this case, EVC was
valued at nearly three times Longford, so EVC shareholders ended up owning
three quarters of Longford. The EVC management team took over running the
combined company and changed the company name to UrtheCast. The $25m
effectively became an investment in UrtheCast by Longford's original
shareholders.

Reverse IPOs (where the company that wants to IPO is "acquired" by a shell
company that already has a public listing) like this aren't unusual (it's a
way of bypassing all the hassle that usually accompanies an IPO) but it's the
first time I've heard of it being combined with what amounts to an investment
round.

[1]: [http://business.financialpost.com/2012/07/12/longford-
energy...](http://business.financialpost.com/2012/07/12/longford-energy-
facing-shareholder-battle-over-dividend-cancellation/)

[2]: [http://business.financialpost.com/2012/08/13/longford-
energy...](http://business.financialpost.com/2012/08/13/longford-energys-new-
team-takes-over/)

[3]: [http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1138175/urthecast-to-
complet...](http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1138175/urthecast-to-complete-
reverse-take-over-with-longford-energy-inc)

~~~
bane
Thanks for the research and writeup. That was really fascinating.

As a shareholder, I wonder how I'd feel. It's not exactly what I signed up
for, but then again it's probably giving my investment a second lease on life.

~~~
jackgavigan
Well, the deal was approved by a majority of Longford's shareholders:
[http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1183707/longford-energy-
inc-...](http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1183707/longford-energy-inc-
shareholders-approve-urthecast-transaction)

Also, as Longford was a publicly-traded company, so shareholders could simply
sell their shares on the open market if they didn't like the plan.

------
nkurz
Here's an interview from a couple years ago with one of the founders of
Urthecast about the cameras, the partnerships, and the business model:
[http://www.sensorsandsystems.com/dialog/interviews/27327-urt...](http://www.sensorsandsystems.com/dialog/interviews/27327-urthecast-
promises-a-live-video-feed-of-earth-from-space.html)

It's a great interview if you are looking for details on the technical details
of the project. Here's a sample:

    
    
      GT: There are two cameras. One is a classic, push-broom,   
      medium-resolution, four-band imager. It is built for space 
      with our partner Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). 
      They had this camera available, it could be built 
      relatively inexpensively, it isn’t particularly large, and 
      it is made for space, so it became a good fit. At the 
      altitude at which the space station flies it gives you a 
      5.5 meter pixel size on the ground or ground sampling 
      distance (GSD).
    
      The other thing that made this project possible is that 
      RSC Energia and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, had 
      already decided to experiment with a camera on the ISS. 
      They had defined the experiment, rolled it all up, and 
      obtained the approval of all the partners, but had not 
      decided what the camera would be. So, when we came along, 
      they loved the idea, and they already had, essentially, a 
      programmatic way to enable it immediately. They had also 
      developed a very high accuracy pointing platform that can 
      point to plus or minus 175 degrees in each of two axes, 
      which means that you can steer it to track a point on the 
      ground. You can also flip it up and look at space targets. 
      Once this project got traction with them — and they liked 
      it a lot — they had a competition to decide who would get 
      to use their pointing platform. We participated and they 
      decided to give the platform to our project. We are very 
      happy about that. That’s what enabled the video cam.
    
      We are typically able to track a spot on the ground for a 
      minute and a half and take video or images. To make it 
      work and get good resolution you need to have that kind of 
      pointing system. To build it from scratch would have been 
      quite expensive. The video camera has an aperture of 32 
      centimeters, so it is essentially an astronomy telescope. 
      It was built by an American company and over the past year 
      has been ruggedized, so that it is suitable for space. The 
      manufacturer already had the parts for this telescope 
      because they built one for another customer and had some 
      spare parts that we were able to buy right away. We were 
      able to put it on a test stand to check it for vibration 
      and work out whether it was possible to make it suitable 
      for space, which we confirmed last summer. So, very 
      quickly that gave us a telescope of the right size and 
      performance and at the right price point for our project. 
    
      As for the detector, we are are using a commercial 18 
      MegaPixel detector from a professional grade DSLR camera 
      that we have radiation tested to ensure it will work in 
      space. The camera electronics is built by RAL, who are 
      leveraging their extensive know-how and technology they 
      have developed for the numerous other optical instruments 
      they built for space. There is nothing really special 
      about the technology, other than that we couldn’t do a 
      NASA-style development costing many tens of millions of 
      dollars. It is a commercial project and it has to be 
      affordable.

------
unspecified
While watching the stream, I was surprised to hear the translator mention a
GoPro camera. Sure enough, each of the cosmonauts has one strapped to his
forearm. That's pretty cool to see consumer-grade technology attached to a
spacewalk.

Via G+[1]:

International Space Station Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight
Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos)
began a planned 6-hour spacewalk from the Earth-facing Pirs Docking
Compartment at 9 a.m. EST.

Kotov is performing his sixth spacewalk. This is Ryazanskiy's third spacewalk.
Both cosmonauts are wearing Russian Orlan suits with blue stripes. Their suits
are equipped with NASA helmet cameras to provide close-up views of the work
they are performing outside the station. Kotov's helmet camera displays the
number 18, and Ryazanskiy's displays the number 20. The duo also will be
wearing a GoPro cameras on their forearms. Kotov will have a single strip of
yellow tape around his GoPro camera, and Ryazanskiy will have two strips on
his camera.

This is the 178th spacewalk in support of space station assembly and
maintenance.

The spacewalking duo's task is to attempt again to install a pair of high
fidelity cameras on a platform attached to the Zvezda Service Module as part
of a commercial arrangement between Roscosmos and a Canadian company to
downlink Earth observation imagery. During their previous spacewalk on Dec.
27, Russian flight controllers were unable to receive telemetry from the
cameras and instructed the spacewalking cosmonauts to bring the cameras back
inside the Russian airlock. While outside the orbiting complex, Kotov and
Ryazanskiy also plan to retrieve an experiment package housed on Zvezda's
hull.

Flight controllers at the Mission Control Center in Korolev, outside of
Moscow, are providing primary support for the spacewalk and coordinating with
Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA Television is providing live coverage of the spacewalk at
[http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv﻿](http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv﻿)

[1]
[https://plus.google.com/+NASA/posts/YJ1i1L2nvY8](https://plus.google.com/+NASA/posts/YJ1i1L2nvY8)

------
untog
I know this is very much offtopic, but at first read I thought this said
"UrethraCast" \- which might be of use in the medical industry, I suppose.

~~~
unreal37
I read it as "UrTheCat" which I thought was a cat meme website like
ICanHazCheezeburger. Why are they live streaming a camera install...

------
heyimmanel
Here you can find more about the installation. It's happening right now.

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-cosmonauts-to-
make-2nd-a...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-cosmonauts-to-make-2nd-
attempt-to-install-15m-high-definition-cameras-on-iss/)

------
deletes
I really hope it is going to be a first-person view from an astronaut. _First
person view!_

Commentator mentioned the installed camera could be used by subscribers.

More details:

[http://mashable.com/2013/12/04/international-space-
station-c...](http://mashable.com/2013/12/04/international-space-station-
camera/)

[http://www.urthecast.com/features#coverage](http://www.urthecast.com/features#coverage)

 _So if the feed is free on Urthecast 's website, how does the company expect
to make money? With a premium service, of course. Corporate clients might want
the cameras pointed at a prospective mining site; the UN has already inked a
deal with the company to help document disasters._

------
Juha
It's surprisingly interesting seeing the astronauts working from first person
view and hearing their communication. Reminds me a lot of the beginning scenes
of Gravity, goes to show how well that movie was shot.

They mentioned they are now about 30 minutes into a 6 hour space walk.

------
fromdoon
They are currently over Hongkong/South East Asia, where it is night time.

Too bad, the background with earth lit up would have been awesome ...

Edit: In about 15 minutes, they are expecting orbital sunrise. That would be
great !!!

~~~
sp332
Don't worry, the ISS gets a sunrise every 90 minutes :)

------
bane
I'm curious what the life expectancy of this imager will be. My understanding
is that run-of-the-mill DSLRs get about 4-6 months before high speed particles
turn the sensor into a grid of random noise.

~~~
heyimmanel
The cameras are space tested, are builded by RAL similar life expectance as a
satellite.

------
deanclatworthy
This is absolutely fascinating. I can't wait to see the imagery but at least
from the samples (even though they state its a simulation) will it be any more
interesting that what we see from google's satellite imagery?

Also, when will the camera be operational and online so we can watch? I can't
find any information on their actual website about this.

~~~
gcb0
if you want something "more interesting that what we see from google's
satellite imagery" then swtich to bing's map and select bird-view. They did
the imagery using airplanes. It is much better for detail then any satelite
imagery.

back on topic, this is worthless for this... remember that the space station
only goes over the same path every time. ...i think you would only get images
of the equator or something.

~~~
zidel
The space station orbit is inclined at 51 degrees so the ground track goes as
far north as London and almost all the way to the southern tip of South-
America. The earth also rotates roughly 23 degrees per orbit, so eventually it
passes within 10-15 degrees of most places between 60 and -60 degrees
latitude.

~~~
deanclatworthy
Which sadly misses (according to their map) where I live.

~~~
nkurz
True, not very good coverage, although you might have some:
[http://www.heavens-
above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=25544&la...](http://www.heavens-
above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=25544&lat=60.1733&lng=24.941&loc=Helsinki&alt=3&tz=EET)

------
Luc
The NASA TV stream seems to be preferable - same video but with commentary and
background:

[http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/](http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/)

------
DangerousPie
This sounds really cool, I don't know how I did not hear about this so far.

Any word on what the cost of getting a camera up to the space station (and
getting it installed) actually is?

~~~
heyimmanel
You can check it out in this article,
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/silico...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/silicon-
valleys-new-spy-satellites/282580/) basically free for urthecast.

------
seanalltogether
Awesome. Imagine if we had a HD camera on every gps satellite and were capable
of creating a full 3D texture of the earth in real time.

~~~
bostonpete
Well, keep in mind that GPS satellites are about 50 times further from the
surface of the Earth than the ISS.

~~~
seanalltogether
Oh sure, I wouldn't expect anything on the level of a google earth. But
imagine something like a 16384x8192 live texture of planet, updated every
minute or so.

------
corresation
Any commentary on the business plan for this company? Outside of the free
options, are they targeting media groups that might want on demand imagery of
evolving news events? It seems like you can pay for the right to have a 30
second ability to direct and capture from the camera? Is it exclusive? e.g.
"Here's MSNBC's exclusive footage of the evolving protests in the Ukraine,
captured from the ISS..."

I always marvel at businesses like this because of the number of barriers they
had to get over to literally launch. Build an app and put it on the Play
store....or build a space-ready high resolution camera and coordinate its
launch and deployment on the ISS?

As one light aside, the mission control person sounds like Téa Leoni in Deep
Impact.

~~~
jd007
I've talked with them about their business, and seen their pitch, so I'll
chime in a bit.

> are they targeting media groups that might want on demand imagery of
> evolving news events?

That is exactly one of their business plans. Whether it is exclusive or not
depends on the details of the contract, but I don't think it will be exclusive
for the most part.

Another part of their business is to provide detailed data on a specific area
of land. In a single pass, because they have a continuous video as they pass
along, they can construct the 3D geometries of any buildings/structure in that
area.

------
Thaxll
Anyone got the specs of the camera?

~~~
heyimmanel
2 Cameras: \- HRC ultra-definition video around 7k . Ground resolution 1m. (1m
on the grown = 1px on the video) shoots videos of 60-90s over targeted areas.

\- MRC push-broom camera 4 band sensor. Ground resolution 5m. (5m on the grown
= 1px on the image) Static image strips of with RGBNIR. Almost continuous
capturing everything under the ISS.

How both cameras work animation.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOA665uz4jo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOA665uz4jo)

------
onion2k
First camera is installed and working. Now they're working on the second.

