The report, based on a workshop involving industry, experts and Pentagon officials, is in part designed to promote what participants consider to be a "North Star" vision for America as leading human expansion into space beyond Earth.
December 17, 2020
A little shop in San Francisco is now offering what it says is the highest-resolution space radar imagery on the market.
Capella Space released the first images taken by one of its orbiting spacecraft, demonstrating the ability to capture imagery at a resolution of 50 cm per pixel the legal limit imposed by US regulators to prevent too-detailed reconnaissance imagery from falling into the wrong hands.
Founded in 2016, the company has launched two synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites that beam radio energy at the Earth from orbit, and decode its reflection back with a novel antenna design. After its first prototype was tested in orbit, Capella had to redesign the second satellite, launched earlier this year, to reach this level of detail. Over the next six months, the company plans to launch six more satellites and begin selling the data they collect worldwide.