SAN FRANCISCO — A San Francisco startup plans to deploy 88 imaging satellites in an Indian PSLV rocket set to be launched on Tuesday. <br /> <br />Planet, Inc. announced that the Dove satellites are scheduled to be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India, in a blog post by Director of Launch and Regulatory Affairs Mike Safyan. <br /> <br />The imaging satellites are set to be deployed in a sun-synchronous orbit at an approximate altitude of 500 kilometers along with 12 other Dove satellites that are already in space, according to Safyan. <br /> <br />The group of 100 satellites will fly north to south as the earth rotates beneath them to form a “line scanner” constellation of satellites, Safyan said. <br /> <br />If the launch is successful, Planet expects to image the entire Earth daily, reports Quartz. <br /> <br />These shoebox-sized satellites continually photograph the surface and complete an orbit approximately every 90 minutes. <br /> <br />Planet announced two weeks ago that it had reached an agreement with Google to acquire its Terra Bella satellite business, including seven high resolution SkySat satellites. <br /> <br />The SkySat satellites are about the size of a cubical mini refrigerator and can capture 90-centimeter resolution images in color and near-infrared.
