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Comment by frik | Hacker News Reader

These high detail satellite images are really impressive.

As there are several (startup) companies in this field I just looked up who is still around/got bought and what's there status:

GeoEye was merged into DigitalGlobe. Google had secured exclusive online mapping use of the GeoEye-1 satellite (Google Maps/Earth). Google bought the direct competitor Skybox for US$500 million in August 1, 2014. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigitalGlobe , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoEye , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skybox_Imaging ). There is also "Spot Image" (EADS/Airbus), NASA (and other US agencies), Sovinformsputnik (the Russian Federal Space Agency) and others.

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You can compare imagery from many of the various providers for any location in the world using https://imagehunter.apollomapping.com/

(Disclosure: I'm a contractor for Apollo Mapping, but not incentivized to help them sell images.)

Don't forget http://www.satellogic.com/ who is doing cheaper satellites solving really challenging issues. You can read this: http://spacenews.com/42322spotlight-satellogic/ about launching a constellation of hundreds of satellites to receive more frequent image updates.

Planet Labs [0] is currently deploying its 'flock' which will collectively image the entire planet every day.

[0] https://www.planet.com/

I knew I recognized the name "Planet Labs"; they're the company whose CubeSats (or at least some of them) were accidentally launched [0]. I wonder how the accidental launches impacted their timeline (e.g. were they able to retrieve the CubeSats and re-launch).

[0] http://news.discovery.com/space/space-stations-cubesat-canno...

Hi, I work for Planet Labs. There was definitely no retrieving those Doves once they were deployed, even had we wanted to. The good news is that we've put a lot of effort into automating our systems, so those satellites actually pinged us shortly after their deploy and were all ready for commissioning! They're currently a few hundred kilometres up and taking photos for us.