In Focus

The Flock earth observing constellation made and operated by Planet Labs consists of numerous triple CubeSats. The majority of the satellites featured a standard RGB imaging system, but five satellites were fitted with experimental systems working in different optical spectral bands. Planet Labs satellites each carry a telescope and a frame CCD camera equipped with Bayer-mask filter. The CCD sensor converts filtered photons into electrons, which are then amplified in order to produce a digital number corresponding to each pixel in each band. Planet Labs has flown three generations of optical instruments: Planet Scope 0 (PS0), Planet Scope 1 (PS1), and Planet Scope 2 (PS2). Images have different attributes depending on satellite altitude and instrument type. PS0 features a 2 element Maksutov Cassegrain optical system paired with an 11MP CCD detector. Optical elements are mounted relative to the structure of the spacecraft. PS1 features the same optical system as PS0, aligned and mounted in an isolated carbon fiber/titanium telescope. This telescope is matched with an 11MP CCD detector. PS2 features a five element optical system that provides a wider field of view and superior image quality. This optical system is paired with a 29MP CCD detector.

CE-SAT 2 (Canon Electric Satellite 2) is an experimental earth observing microsatellite developed and built by Canon Electronics. It's a satellite model smaller than the CE-SAT 1, and is equipped with cameras with different resolutions : - Primary telephoto: a super high sensitivity camera with a mirror diameter of 200 mm. The ground resolution is approximately 5.1 m with a frame size of 3.5 km by 2.3 km. - Secondary telephoto: an EOS M100 with a mirror diameter of 87 mm. The ground reolution is approximately 5 m with a frame size of 5.6 km by 3.7 km - Wide-Angle: PowerShot G9X MarkII