What kind of business do the digital company "Digital Globe", a space company that manages satellites operate?

50 years ago when mankind fell to the moon, it was said that "the universe belongs to a country with a mighty power or a government with power." However, as the wave of civilization and commercialization is now spreading in the universe, it is expected to grow to a market of hundreds of trillion yen in size. Channels introducing various industries around the worldWendover ProductionsIn the following movie to be released, the space company that skips the observation satellite "Digital Globe"Attracting attention.

Space: The Next Trillion Dollar Industry - YouTube


DigitalGlobe, a space company founded in 1992,SpaceXMr. Eulon Mask had skipped commercial observation satellites before graduating from college. In fact, DigitalGlobe is the earliest company given permission to take high-resolution photographs from outer space, using satellitesRemote sensingWe do business.


There are various kinds of artificial satellites. For example, an artificial satellite called geostationary satellite has a distance of about 22,000 miles (about 36,000 km) from the ground surface equal to the rotation of the earthangular velocityAs you can see the satellite from the earth, it looks as if it seems to stop.


Some geostationary satellites are used for communication systems such as satellite broadcasting of television and radio. It is an American satellite broadcasting stationDirecTVBy providing one geosynchronous satellite over the United States it makes it possible to put the whole of America in the service area. Since DirecTV limits the broadcasting area to the United States, there is no need to skip satellites a number of units around the world.



Meanwhile, five different satellites owned by DigitalGlobe, unlike geostationary satellites, are about 380 miles from the ground (about 620 km)Low orbitWe are going around. The first "GeoEye - 1" was launched in 2007 and the newest "WorldView - 4" was launched in 2016. All 5 satellitesEarth Observation SatelliteSo, it is for taking photographs of the ground.


WorldView - 4 can shoot the ground with a very high accuracy of 1 pixel 30 cm square from 383 miles (about 620 kilometers) over the sky. When you actually see the images taken from WorldView 4, you can see the lines and signs drawn on the road.


The observation satellite owned by DigitalGlobe is not a geostationary satellite, but it makes a circle so that observation can always be performed under the same condition by keeping the incident angle of sunlight constantSolar synchronous orbitIt is a satellite. For example, WorldView - 3 owned by DigitalGlobe circles low orbit so as to fly over at 10:30 am local time. When flying over Tokyo it will be at 10:30 AM in Japan time and when you are flying Paris it will be 10:30 AM in French time.


WorldView - 3 will be able to take a picture of the situation at 10:30 am all over the world by keeping circling while photographing for days, months, years.


The five observation satellites totaling billions of yen are adjusted so that they do not collide with other satellites and space debris by just four staff members in Digital Globe's control command center.


In addition, there are several antennas in the world to exchange data with orbiting satellites with super high power Wi-Fi. With this antenna, 1 GB of data can be exchanged from the satellite every second, and 7 TB of unprocessed image data is sent from the satellite everyday.


Where the antenna is installed all over the world is a trade secret, but supposing that there is one in Germany, it seems that it is possible to receive data while the observation satellite passes over Europe.


DigitalGlobe asserts that the collected satellite images of the world are used for social welfare, and in fact DigitalGlobe 's satellite photography data is also utilized in Google Maps. In another example, DigitalGlobe was founded by Microsoft co-founder Bill GatesBill & Melinda Gates FoundationWe provide data that summarizes where houses scattered in Zambia are located. This data is used to comprehend the number of vaccines and food necessary for support to Zambia by summarizing the village which had never been on the map until now.


Although DigitalGlobe owns only five observation satellites at the time of article creation, it operates data from satellites and earns billions of yen income. However, most of it will be used for investment in antennas that communicate with rockets and satellites that will keep observation satellites, launch it, and will flow to companies involved in the development of rockets and antennas. In this way, the market of the space industry is tremendously funded and it is showing rapid growth.