So if the feed is free on Urthecast's website, how does the company expect to make money? With a premium service, of course. Corporate clients might want the cameras pointed at a prospective mining site; the UN has already inked a deal with the company to help document disasters.
Any commentary on the business plan for this company? Outside of the free options, are they targeting media groups that might want on demand imagery of evolving news events? It seems like you can pay for the right to have a 30 second ability to direct and capture from the camera? Is it exclusive? e.g. "Here's MSNBC's exclusive footage of the evolving protests in the Ukraine, captured from the ISS..."
I always marvel at businesses like this because of the number of barriers they had to get over to literally launch. Build an app and put it on the Play store....or build a space-ready high resolution camera and coordinate its launch and deployment on the ISS?
As one light aside, the mission control person sounds like Téa Leoni in Deep Impact.
I've talked with them about their business, and seen their pitch, so I'll chime in a bit.
> are they targeting media groups that might want on demand imagery of evolving news events?
That is exactly one of their business plans. Whether it is exclusive or not depends on the details of the contract, but I don't think it will be exclusive for the most part.
Another part of their business is to provide detailed data on a specific area of land. In a single pass, because they have a continuous video as they pass along, they can construct the 3D geometries of any buildings/structure in that area.
It's surprisingly interesting seeing the astronauts working from first person view and hearing their communication. Reminds me a lot of the beginning scenes of Gravity, goes to show how well that movie was shot.
They mentioned they are now about 30 minutes into a 6 hour space walk.
2 Cameras:
- HRC ultra-definition video around 7k . Ground resolution 1m. (1m on the grown = 1px on the video) shoots videos of 60-90s over targeted areas.
- MRC push-broom camera 4 band sensor. Ground resolution 5m. (5m on the grown = 1px on the image)
Static image strips of with RGBNIR. Almost continuous capturing everything under the ISS.
I got curious about how a company had done a deal to put a camera on ISS and sell the pictures for profit so I started Googling. It looks like they basically did a deal with RSC Energia and the Russian Federal Space Agency. However, what's far more interesting is what I found out about how UrtheCast raised the money to make this happen.
UrtheCast started out as a privately-held (i.e. pre-IPO) startup company called Earth Video Camera Inc (EVC). EVC raised C$4.5m in 2012 but the bulk of its funding came last year when it completed a reverse takeover of a publicly-traded company called Longford Energy.
Longford used to be an oil and gas exploration firm but in 2012 it sold its sole remaining asset (a 40% share of an oilfield in Iraq) and ended up with a pile of cash ($25m) but no operating business or significant assets. Instead of returning the cash to the shareholders (which would presumably have incurred dividend taxes), Longford's management decided to pursue "acquisition opportunities"[1]. However, a couple of hedge funds got involved and convinced the other Longford shareholders that they'd do a better job than the existing management team who were duly fired and replaced with the hedge funds' team[2].
Six months later, EVC and Longford announced[3] the reverse takeover, which was duly completed in June last year - Longford "acquired" EVC by issuing shares in Longford to UrtheCast's shareholders. Normally, that sort of deal involves a larger company acquiring a smaller one but, in this case, EVC was valued at nearly three times Longford, so EVC shareholders ended up owning three quarters of Longford. The EVC management team took over running the combined company and changed the company name to UrtheCast. The $25m effectively became an investment in UrtheCast by Longford's original shareholders.
Reverse IPOs (where the company that wants to IPO is "acquired" by a shell company that already has a public listing) like this aren't unusual (it's a way of bypassing all the hassle that usually accompanies an IPO) but it's the first time I've heard of it being combined with what amounts to an investment round.
Thanks for the research and writeup. That was really fascinating.
As a shareholder, I wonder how I'd feel. It's not exactly what I signed up for, but then again it's probably giving my investment a second lease on life.
Longford, company that owned perfect cover for intelligence assets in middle east, sells its oilfield in Iraq and "invests" in another perfect cover for gathering even more intelligence.
I'm curious what the life expectancy of this imager will be. My understanding is that run-of-the-mill DSLRs get about 4-6 months before high speed particles turn the sensor into a grid of random noise.
This is absolutely fascinating. I can't wait to see the imagery but at least from the samples (even though they state its a simulation) will it be any more interesting that what we see from google's satellite imagery?
Also, when will the camera be operational and online so we can watch? I can't find any information on their actual website about this.
if you want something "more interesting that what we see from google's satellite imagery" then swtich to bing's map and select bird-view. They did the imagery using airplanes. It is much better for detail then any satelite imagery.
back on topic, this is worthless for this... remember that the space station only goes over the same path every time. ...i think you would only get images of the equator or something.
The space station orbit is inclined at 51 degrees so the ground track goes as far north as London and almost all the way to the southern tip of South-America. The earth also rotates roughly 23 degrees per orbit, so eventually it passes within 10-15 degrees of most places between 60 and -60 degrees latitude.
Oh sure, I wouldn't expect anything on the level of a google earth. But imagine something like a 16384x8192 live texture of planet, updated every minute or so.
It's a great interview if you are looking for details on the technical details of the project. Here's a sample:
GT: There are two cameras. One is a classic, push-broom,
medium-resolution, four-band imager. It is built for space
with our partner Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL).
They had this camera available, it could be built
relatively inexpensively, it isn’t particularly large, and
it is made for space, so it became a good fit. At the
altitude at which the space station flies it gives you a
5.5 meter pixel size on the ground or ground sampling
distance (GSD).
The other thing that made this project possible is that
RSC Energia and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, had
already decided to experiment with a camera on the ISS.
They had defined the experiment, rolled it all up, and
obtained the approval of all the partners, but had not
decided what the camera would be. So, when we came along,
they loved the idea, and they already had, essentially, a
programmatic way to enable it immediately. They had also
developed a very high accuracy pointing platform that can
point to plus or minus 175 degrees in each of two axes,
which means that you can steer it to track a point on the
ground. You can also flip it up and look at space targets.
Once this project got traction with them — and they liked
it a lot — they had a competition to decide who would get
to use their pointing platform. We participated and they
decided to give the platform to our project. We are very
happy about that. That’s what enabled the video cam.
We are typically able to track a spot on the ground for a
minute and a half and take video or images. To make it
work and get good resolution you need to have that kind of
pointing system. To build it from scratch would have been
quite expensive. The video camera has an aperture of 32
centimeters, so it is essentially an astronomy telescope.
It was built by an American company and over the past year
has been ruggedized, so that it is suitable for space. The
manufacturer already had the parts for this telescope
because they built one for another customer and had some
spare parts that we were able to buy right away. We were
able to put it on a test stand to check it for vibration
and work out whether it was possible to make it suitable
for space, which we confirmed last summer. So, very
quickly that gave us a telescope of the right size and
performance and at the right price point for our project.
As for the detector, we are are using a commercial 18
MegaPixel detector from a professional grade DSLR camera
that we have radiation tested to ensure it will work in
space. The camera electronics is built by RAL, who are
leveraging their extensive know-how and technology they
have developed for the numerous other optical instruments
they built for space. There is nothing really special
about the technology, other than that we couldn’t do a
NASA-style development costing many tens of millions of
dollars. It is a commercial project and it has to be
affordable.
While watching the stream, I was surprised to hear the translator mention a GoPro camera. Sure enough, each of the cosmonauts has one strapped to his forearm. That's pretty cool to see consumer-grade technology attached to a spacewalk.
Via G+[1]:
International Space Station Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) began a planned 6-hour spacewalk from the Earth-facing Pirs Docking Compartment at 9 a.m. EST.
Kotov is performing his sixth spacewalk. This is Ryazanskiy's third spacewalk. Both cosmonauts are wearing Russian Orlan suits with blue stripes. Their suits are equipped with NASA helmet cameras to provide close-up views of the work they are performing outside the station. Kotov's helmet camera displays the number 18, and Ryazanskiy's displays the number 20. The duo also will be wearing a GoPro cameras on their forearms. Kotov will have a single strip of yellow tape around his GoPro camera, and Ryazanskiy will have two strips on his camera.
This is the 178th spacewalk in support of space station assembly and maintenance.
The spacewalking duo's task is to attempt again to install a pair of high fidelity cameras on a platform attached to the Zvezda Service Module as part of a commercial arrangement between Roscosmos and a Canadian company to downlink Earth observation imagery. During their previous spacewalk on Dec. 27, Russian flight controllers were unable to receive telemetry from the cameras and instructed the spacewalking cosmonauts to bring the cameras back inside the Russian airlock. While outside the orbiting complex, Kotov and Ryazanskiy also plan to retrieve an experiment package housed on Zvezda's hull.
Flight controllers at the Mission Control Center in Korolev, outside of Moscow, are providing primary support for the spacewalk and coordinating with Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
34 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 84.8 ms ] threadCommentator mentioned the installed camera could be used by subscribers.
More details:
http://mashable.com/2013/12/04/international-space-station-c...
http://www.urthecast.com/features#coverage
So if the feed is free on Urthecast's website, how does the company expect to make money? With a premium service, of course. Corporate clients might want the cameras pointed at a prospective mining site; the UN has already inked a deal with the company to help document disasters.
I always marvel at businesses like this because of the number of barriers they had to get over to literally launch. Build an app and put it on the Play store....or build a space-ready high resolution camera and coordinate its launch and deployment on the ISS?
As one light aside, the mission control person sounds like Téa Leoni in Deep Impact.
> are they targeting media groups that might want on demand imagery of evolving news events?
That is exactly one of their business plans. Whether it is exclusive or not depends on the details of the contract, but I don't think it will be exclusive for the most part.
Another part of their business is to provide detailed data on a specific area of land. In a single pass, because they have a continuous video as they pass along, they can construct the 3D geometries of any buildings/structure in that area.
Too bad, the background with earth lit up would have been awesome ...
Edit: In about 15 minutes, they are expecting orbital sunrise. That would be great !!!
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/
They mentioned they are now about 30 minutes into a 6 hour space walk.
- MRC push-broom camera 4 band sensor. Ground resolution 5m. (5m on the grown = 1px on the image) Static image strips of with RGBNIR. Almost continuous capturing everything under the ISS.
How both cameras work animation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOA665uz4jo
Any word on what the cost of getting a camera up to the space station (and getting it installed) actually is?
UrtheCast started out as a privately-held (i.e. pre-IPO) startup company called Earth Video Camera Inc (EVC). EVC raised C$4.5m in 2012 but the bulk of its funding came last year when it completed a reverse takeover of a publicly-traded company called Longford Energy.
Longford used to be an oil and gas exploration firm but in 2012 it sold its sole remaining asset (a 40% share of an oilfield in Iraq) and ended up with a pile of cash ($25m) but no operating business or significant assets. Instead of returning the cash to the shareholders (which would presumably have incurred dividend taxes), Longford's management decided to pursue "acquisition opportunities"[1]. However, a couple of hedge funds got involved and convinced the other Longford shareholders that they'd do a better job than the existing management team who were duly fired and replaced with the hedge funds' team[2].
Six months later, EVC and Longford announced[3] the reverse takeover, which was duly completed in June last year - Longford "acquired" EVC by issuing shares in Longford to UrtheCast's shareholders. Normally, that sort of deal involves a larger company acquiring a smaller one but, in this case, EVC was valued at nearly three times Longford, so EVC shareholders ended up owning three quarters of Longford. The EVC management team took over running the combined company and changed the company name to UrtheCast. The $25m effectively became an investment in UrtheCast by Longford's original shareholders.
Reverse IPOs (where the company that wants to IPO is "acquired" by a shell company that already has a public listing) like this aren't unusual (it's a way of bypassing all the hassle that usually accompanies an IPO) but it's the first time I've heard of it being combined with what amounts to an investment round.
[1]: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/07/12/longford-energy...
[2]: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/08/13/longford-energy...
[3]: http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1138175/urthecast-to-complet...
As a shareholder, I wonder how I'd feel. It's not exactly what I signed up for, but then again it's probably giving my investment a second lease on life.
Also, as Longford was a publicly-traded company, so shareholders could simply sell their shares on the open market if they didn't like the plan.
Doesnt sound like CIA run front at all, no no no.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-cosmonauts-to-make-2nd-a...
Also, when will the camera be operational and online so we can watch? I can't find any information on their actual website about this.
back on topic, this is worthless for this... remember that the space station only goes over the same path every time. ...i think you would only get images of the equator or something.
It's a great interview if you are looking for details on the technical details of the project. Here's a sample:
Via G+[1]:
International Space Station Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) began a planned 6-hour spacewalk from the Earth-facing Pirs Docking Compartment at 9 a.m. EST.
Kotov is performing his sixth spacewalk. This is Ryazanskiy's third spacewalk. Both cosmonauts are wearing Russian Orlan suits with blue stripes. Their suits are equipped with NASA helmet cameras to provide close-up views of the work they are performing outside the station. Kotov's helmet camera displays the number 18, and Ryazanskiy's displays the number 20. The duo also will be wearing a GoPro cameras on their forearms. Kotov will have a single strip of yellow tape around his GoPro camera, and Ryazanskiy will have two strips on his camera.
This is the 178th spacewalk in support of space station assembly and maintenance.
The spacewalking duo's task is to attempt again to install a pair of high fidelity cameras on a platform attached to the Zvezda Service Module as part of a commercial arrangement between Roscosmos and a Canadian company to downlink Earth observation imagery. During their previous spacewalk on Dec. 27, Russian flight controllers were unable to receive telemetry from the cameras and instructed the spacewalking cosmonauts to bring the cameras back inside the Russian airlock. While outside the orbiting complex, Kotov and Ryazanskiy also plan to retrieve an experiment package housed on Zvezda's hull.
Flight controllers at the Mission Control Center in Korolev, outside of Moscow, are providing primary support for the spacewalk and coordinating with Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA Television is providing live coverage of the spacewalk at http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
[1] https://plus.google.com/+NASA/posts/YJ1i1L2nvY8