Towards Daily 5 m Resolution Mosaics of the Earth
Date:
AGU Fall Meeting session A33P: The Rise of Small Satellite Constellations for Earth Observation I
Kelsey A Jordahl, Robert B Simmon, Amit Kapadia, JD Kington IV, Kevin Wurster, and Maurice Schönert
Planet operates dozens of 3U-class nanosatellites imaging the Earth at 3-5 m spatial resolution in visible and near-infrared wavelengths. Currently acquiring over 10,000 km^2 daily, we are progressing towards imaging the Earth at daily cadence in 2017. Dynamically updated global mosaics are created by selecting, color balancing, and seamlessly mosaicking millions of scenes to create time slices at regular intervals. The data shown in these mosaics present an unprecedented opportunity to observe the Earth at better than 5 m spatial resolution and approaching daily temporal resolution. Daily data at high spatial resolution opens up new analysis techniques previously limited by the relatively low-resolution of instruments such as MODIS and VIIRS.