

Planes Landing in Beijing: Video from Space - bsudekum
https://www.mapbox.com/blog/video-of-beijing-from-space/

======
TallGuyShort
They seem to be careful not to show a large object like a plane crossing the
"seams" that appear in the video (similar to the seams in satellite imagery on
maps where they've patched together data from multiple passes / satellites).
When you see the cars on the freeway they seem to disappear at the seams. Does
the camera have to be focused on an area the size of the blocks they show?
This is still very impressive - I don't mean to downplay the technical
achievement, but I'm just trying to get a realistic sense of where the
technology is at. I suspect this is video overlaid on static images.

~~~
celoyd
The video field of view is 1.1 by 2 km:
[http://skybox.com/uploads/10/08/imageryandvideospecsheet.pdf](http://skybox.com/uploads/10/08/imageryandvideospecsheet.pdf)

Purely speculating, not going on anything they’ve said: _theoretically_ when
they have more satellites you _might_ be able to patch together a larger area
with simultaneous video from several birds. You’d have a slightly ugly angle
difference at the seam, of course. There may be technical constraints here
that I’m not thinking of, though.

In any case, at 1 m GSD and 30 fps, 1.1 by 2 km is 66 megapixels a second.
Even efficiently compressed, that’s a lot of information already.

~~~
sixothree
It looks more like the fov is 0.1 by 2 km (in this particular video).

------
tokenadult
There are some hard, unforgiving physical limits on resolution of photographs
from orbit, even with digital correction of the images. For one thing, the
camera is necessarily far away, and moving fast at the same time.[1] I was
able to follow the specific link just kindly submitted here, which of course
shows a rather large object (a commercial airliner). The satellite company's
image gallery[2] compares quite favorably in resolution to an earlier
company's image gallery we discussed here on HN about three years ago. But it
will be quite a while--perhaps never--before some of the statements about
satellite imagery that were already being made for propaganda purposes in the
1960s will be anything close to reality, even for classified military
intelligence satellites. We won't be reading people's mobile phone screens
from orbit ever, probably. Unmanned drone aircraft are at nearer distance and
travel at slower speed, and provide a much better platform than earth-orbiting
satellites for high-resolution spying.

[1]
[http://books.google.com/books?id=6DBnS2g-KrQC&pg=PA204&lpg=P...](http://books.google.com/books?id=6DBnS2g-KrQC&pg=PA204&lpg=PA204&dq=Physics+for+Future+Presidents+spy+satellite+resolution)

[http://www.kmc63.com/phy1000/worksheet-
licenseplates.pdf](http://www.kmc63.com/phy1000/worksheet-licenseplates.pdf)

[2] [http://www.firstimagery.skybox.com/](http://www.firstimagery.skybox.com/)

~~~
bane
The first link you provided also brings up several interesting implications
about continuous surveillance from space. The first is that it is
_technically_ possible, but economically difficult. Getting ~5000 high
resolution satellites in LEO is not really all that much more difficult than
getting 1, it's a matter of scale. But getting funding to put that number up
is virtually impossible. Even smallsats and other swarm approaches lack the
physical space for the sensors (which is limited by physics, not technology).
This is why air breathing drones are becoming so important. Make no mistake,
NASA continuous aircraft programs like Helios have ready applications in
surveillance. And from those heights, the sensors don't have to be nearly as
large as on an LEO bird.

The second is that receiving data from that many birds is problematic. There
are only so many receiving stations and only so much EM bandwidth available
for communication and recovery of the images. Even switching to drones doesn't
solve the problem. Even as of last year bandwidth was a limiting factor for
the number of drones up in the air at once. [1] So now we have two problems,
getting birds in the air, and we still have the bandwidth problem for
downlink.

Finally, analyzing that much imagery is nearly impossible. Automated
algorithms help some with certain tasks, but storage, processing, accessing,
then analyzing all of that on a continuous basis is pretty much impossible. So
even if getting enough sensors deployed is solved, and getting bandwidth is
solved, it doesn't mean there's enough people to physically look at and
interpret the results anyway. And storing all that for later instantaneous on-
demand retrieval is still a problem nobody's really solved.

1 -
[http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130331/DEFFEAT02/303310...](http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130331/DEFFEAT02/303310009/Pentagon-
Seeks-Solutions-UAV-Bandwidth-Crunch)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Bandwidth issues are alleviated by directional antennae, right?

~~~
bane
Not necessarily, you still need to collect the transmission. You can still
saturate a frequency no matter how focused if enough transmitters are hitting
the same receiver.

~~~
ajcarpy2005
Exactly. So just deploy enough receivers and focus the transmissions enough so
that the frequencies don't get saturated.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Or the receivers track the satellites. This can be done electronically, no
need for swivels and servos, just an array.

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phreeza
I was for some reason completely unaware of this possibility. How much would
comissioning such a clip cost, and whats the delay? I looked through the
website but couldn't seem to find concrete info. I am surprised that the media
isn't using this, like they have taken to using satellite imagery on news
shows now. They could show moving imagery of troop movements on the Crimea
right now? That seems like it would have a huge impact...

~~~
akiselev
Everyone I know who's worked on microsatellite imaging has talked about the
financial district. The thinking goes: watch the Panama or Suez Canal and
you're the first one to know when an oil tanker gets delayed, etc..

~~~
apaprocki
You can do that right now on a Bloomberg terminal -- definitely don't need
satellite imagery. Ships have transponders that tell you where they are. There
are definite financial sector use cases, though.

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oniTony
Those guys have done a TED talk about designing and launching their
lightweight satellites.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_berkenstock_the_world_is_one_bi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_berkenstock_the_world_is_one_big_dataset_now_how_to_photograph_it)

------
Cookingboy
I am more amazed at the lack of smog blocking visibility. Disclaimer: I'm
Chinese and I love Beijing as a city, on a good day it's about as clean as LA
and on a bad day its...well you can barely see airport terminal when you land.

~~~
digikata
In LA at least, smog goes to about 5000ft to the inversion layer. Looking
vertically through that distance you get much better visibility vs looking
horizontally through miles of smog. You can notice the effect looking out a
plane window at cruise altitude compared to landing and takeoff.

~~~
celoyd
Exactly. This is why distant city lights often twinkle even more than stars
do: there’s more atmosphere between you and them than between you and the
stars.

Another effect here is that Skybox’s video uses the pan band, which includes
infrared to 900 nm[0], and smog is usually pretty transparent in NIR,
depending.

0\.
[http://skybox.com/uploads/10/08/imageryandvideospecsheet.pdf](http://skybox.com/uploads/10/08/imageryandvideospecsheet.pdf)

And a third important factor is that smog is very diffuse (by definition:
otherwise you call it a smoke plume), so if you have the bit depth you can
just increase contrast until you get a good image.

(I work at Mapbox on satellite imagery, but wasn’t involved with this
particular blog post; what I’m saying here is stuff that people in remote
sensing Just Know.)

------
ChuckMcM
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this is the notion that cubesats are
not 'toys'. That said, given the low cost of compute one wonders if satellite
_mapping_ which is to say generation of structured data on orbit from a high
resolution locally obtained imagery is something that might get more work.

Specifically there is a lot of work in the mapping industry for taking a
satellite image and turning it into a map. But there isn't nearly as much (if
any) work about having a satellite, which can image the same spot repeatedly,
providing a downlink of the the _map_ rather than the image. By re-imaging you
can just punt on features that are hard to guess and wait for the next pass to
see if they will get easier. You might also be able to use multi-angle shadow
analysis to pull some 3D feature extraction as well.

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madaxe_again
This is childs-play compared to what the DoD are up to with WAPS, currently in
the format of ARGUS.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS)

Simultaneous video surveillance of 8 x 8km with a single drone, at 15cm
resolution.

I'm afraid to say that while this is neat, realtime video maps of the planet
will be provided by drone tech, not satellites - for now. When we can stick
something in geosync with amazing eyes at a low energy cost (space elevator),
this picture may change - but until then... nope.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
While impressive, I have a hard time believing this claim:

> As ARGUS floats overhead for months at a time, it dragnet tracks every
> moving person and vehicle and chronographs their movements, allowing
> forensic investigators to rewind the footage and watch the activities of
> anyone they select within the footage.

The amount of footage just one pod collects in a short span of time is
monumental. They're storing what amounts to decades of footage for just one
day's worth of operation. Maybe they have some criteria that trims unnecessary
footage, but I can't imagine that saving all that much space as they don't
want to miss anything.

~~~
madaxe_again
Storage is cheap. If you're storing on HDDs for quick access, the cost is
small - if you're storing on archival tape in silos, the cost drops even
further.

------
TrainedMonkey
That is pretty awesome. I would be very interested in limits of modern
reconnaissance hardware in orbit, if commercial microsats can produce video
with clearly visible cars.

~~~
wmeredith
Well, in 1985 US Spy satellites (declassified in 2011) had a resolution of 2-3
feet[1]. "Keyhole-class" (KH) reconnaissance satellites have been orbiting the
Earth for more than 30 years and reportedly have a resolution of 5-6
inches[2].

[1][http://news.yahoo.com/declassified-us-spy-satellites-
reveal-...](http://news.yahoo.com/declassified-us-spy-satellites-reveal-rare-
look-secret-143102614.html)

[2][http://science.howstuffworks.com/question529.htm](http://science.howstuffworks.com/question529.htm)

~~~
TrainedMonkey
That is precisely why I mentioned modern, in particular would be interesting
to know if given a good angle they can resolve phone number being entered on a
cell phone with physical keyboard (nokia 3390 for example).

~~~
nathancahill
Not sure if troll. The answer is no. 5-6 inch resolution means that one pixel
will represent 5-6 inches. You wouldn't even be able to see the phone.

Edit: Sorry, understood your comment now. The real problem isn't resolution,
it's "getting a good angle". Unless your target and the satellite's orbit are
magically aligned at a precise moment, you're going to have an extremely hard
time getting a satellite into position in a reasonable time (the best
commercial satellites can do is around 6 hours).

~~~
eyeface
Parent knows this, and was asking what could be done with modern hardware,
given that keyhole-class satellites have been up for 30 years.

~~~
ynniv
Optical resolution doesn't follow Moore's law. There will certainly have been
improvements, but not like we are accustomed to. Computers can be used to
model the atmosphere and attempt to recover resolution, but the returns will
diminish quickly.

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natch
Not sure why the frantic movement of the map was necessary. Or a looping
video, for that matter. Hold still for a while, let us watch stuff moving
without moving the map. Reminds me of the faked Roswell "alien autopsy" video
that showed a series very quick edits in succession, no way to focus on
anything or get a good look at what is going on. Something seems fishy here.

------
arepb
You should be able to see Sean Miller on that northern Africa encampment
pretty easily now.

~~~
arethuza
In case anyone is wondering - this appears to be reference to this scene from
_Patriot Games_ :

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoVWedQOQl4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoVWedQOQl4)

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drpancake
UrtheCast are working on something similar. Their camera recently made it to
the ISS and the next step is a spacewalk to install it.

[http://www.urthecast.com](http://www.urthecast.com)

~~~
celoyd
And the third microsat company with operations coming online soon is Planet
Labs: [http://www.planet-labs.com](http://www.planet-labs.com)

Robinson Meyer at “The Atlantic” did a nice overview two months ago:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/silico...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/silicon-
valleys-new-spy-satellites/282580/)

It’s an interesting time in remote sensing.

------
EA
The near-term future of disruptive spaceflight isn't sending big heavy objects
into space---it's sending nano-satellites into orbit around the earth.

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samelawrence
So, I guess the future of Google Maps is where your GPS actually shows your
car driving in real time down the highway.

I love living in a video game.

~~~
incanus77
No, it's the future of maps, not Google Maps.

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jdelsman
Wonder if this can be used over Ukraine/Crimea?

~~~
vesinisa
I am pretty certain that's exactly what CIA is doing right now, but using
their own spy satellite constellation.

~~~
bsherrill
Google Maps 2.0

~~~
keyhole_downs
Paid for with Afghan Heroin.

~~~
ceejayoz
You wouldn't use drug money for spy satellites, they're happily paid for by
Congress. Drug money's for stuff you don't want tied back to the organization
- assassinations, corruption, etc.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
That's right. see: _The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug
Trade_ by Alfred W. McCoy for more details.

~~~
keyhole_downs
This message brought to you by Pat Tillman.

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antonius
Site is down for me. Any mirrors?

~~~
maxden
The video from the page is this:
[https://player.vimeo.com/video/88122560](https://player.vimeo.com/video/88122560)

and says its from Skybox’s SkySat-1.

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djfred
Ask the NSA how to store data.

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notastartup
would LOVE to have a developer API to skybox. The things one could do!

~~~
nkurz
Urthecast says they'll be offering one, although I don't know what they'll end
up allowing:
[http://www.urthecast.com/developer](http://www.urthecast.com/developer)

What sort of things would you want an API for?

~~~
notastartup
Oh, I was just thinking of how cool it would be to have a live satellite video
to create my own mobile apps.

Urthecast seems like it provides images, what would be really awesome is if
they offered some short time interval based image refreshing. (acquire new
images every few minutes)

