Small satellites: Obvious benefits but also concerns.

• Author: Machi, Vivienne
• Position: Viewpoint

Commercial technology companies are providing key imaging and communications services via small satellite systems that may provide cost-effective options for boosting the United States' space resiliency, and they're developing them faster than the U.S. military can, experts said.

"We are seeing a pace of innovation that will provide a yield of applications that no one has thought of before," said Brian Weeden, technical advisor for the Secure World Foundation, a space security think tank based in Colorado.

Small satellites--typically considered to be systems weighing 500 kilograms or less--can provide additional data to current imaging systems and provide broadband internet to users in remote locations.

San Francisco-based imaging company Planet is one of several Silicon Valley startups focused on small satellite imagery. Its constellation of CubeSats--a set of miniaturized systems measuring about 10 centimeters cubed--situated in low-Earth orbit can snap pictures more frequently than a traditional remote sensing satellite, Weeden said.

"It's not very high-resolution imagery... you can't fit six feet of glass into a 10-centimeter cube," he said. "You wouldn't use it to try and figure out where a tank might be hiding in a field, or to measure the precise size of most things," but it would be useful to monitor changes in forest cover or to analyze weather patterns, he said.

Planet co-founder and chief strategic officer Robbie Schingler said his company's products provide the "peripheral vision" that then is able to inform more high-resolution imaging systems. This could assist with the monitoring of borders, disaster response and preparedness and other military missions, he said.

Persistent surveillance is a key attribute that satellite operators are trying to bring into the space industry, said Arun Kumar Sampathkumar, an aerospace and defense expert at Frost & Sullivan, a market consulting firm.

On-demand geographic information systems--that can capture, store and display geographic positioning data--will be seen as a key disruptor in the industry, where business models like Planet's pay-per-image product may be financially appealing to existing commercial and government customers, Sampathkumar said.

It may also draw in new customers who may not have been able to afford satellite imagery in the past, he added. Users "don't need to invest in extensive infrastructure to access these GIS products straight to their laptops and smart-phones," he...