#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: Earth: The Final Countdown – Using Space to Save the Planet

by Dalibor Djuran, Planet Labs

“House, the ultimate frontier.” All of us keep in mind these phrases spoken by Captain Kirk of the united statesEnterprise. The Star Trek present introduced house into American properties within the sixties. On the peak of the house race, Star Trek centered on house as a ultimate frontier that must be conquered. It confirmed journeys of the united statesEnterprise and its crew to distant galaxies and new worlds “…to boldly go the place no man has gone earlier than”, because the Captain put it. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, launched the idea of the United Federation of Planets, a three way partnership of planets and species working collectively to discover the cosmos.

Watching this present, I all the time thought how cool it might be to go to house and journey on the pace of sunshine to discover it. Sadly, we don’t have warp speeds and USS Enterprise ships. Not less than, not but. However what if we may go to house at the moment and use it to assist life on Earth? Now that may be a thought!

After spending a long time trying up within the sky, we forgot to look down on Earth and see what’s going on with our planet. A long time of brutal exploitation of pure assets, concentrate on consumerism, disregard for the surroundings and lack of life in concord with the character at the moment are coming again to hang-out us. The payments are due, and our checking account is slim. Within the spirit of Gene Rodenberry, we should always change the well-known phrases to “Earth, the ultimate countdown!” The clock is ticking, and we don’t have an excessive amount of time till we attain the purpose when modifications to our planet are irreversible. Avast! Not all is misplaced! It’s time to go to house to assist the Earth.

The quick growth of Earth imaging satellites went considerably unnoticed by the big public within the final decade. Nevertheless, the rise of house startups comparable to Planet Labs, which is a pacesetter in working giant flocks of satellites, and SpaceX, which is a pacesetter in value efficient launches, is enabling superior optical options to search out their quick path to house. Planet Labs is offering every day imagery of the Earth through the use of its flock of round 200 satellites within the Low Earth Orbit (LEO), utilizing Eight-band multispectral scopes. The imagery supplied by Planet Labs is top quality scientific imagery, which is used for analytics that results in issues like monitoring deforestation, detecting vegetation modifications earlier than they grow to be seen and performing on it, monitoring habits of the wildlife within the space of the Nice Barrier Reef, and help in stopping and monitoring floods and fires, simply to call just a few. And the info is accessible to the entire world, which makes Planet Labs’ enterprise mannequin distinctive. Through the use of frequent launches of small, nano satellites, Planet Labs is succesful to launch new expertise into orbit – and that a number of instances per 12 months. This fashion they’ll be sure that their fleet of satellites is all the time refreshed with the most recent and biggest optics and radio expertise.

On the opposite aspect, we’re witnessing the rise of nonprofit organizations in small international locations and areas, which historically didn’t participate in house exploration. One instance is the Serbian Case for House (www.serbiancaseforspace.com). Began by a bunch of younger, vivid house attorneys with unbelievable vitality and keenness, this group is selling using house expertise within the Balkan area. The intention is to federate the Balkan international locations and use the info supplied by Planet Labs to search out options for the main issues plaguing the area. These options might be out there to everybody. The group is shortly gaining momentum and recruiting younger skills. It’s a pleasure to see so many individuals decided to assist enhance the life on Earth and never concentrate on the issues that divided us previously. This brings us to the query: how are you going to take part? Step one – participate in hackathon!

SCS and Planet Labs will arrange a digital hackathon on October 31^st and November 1^st. The identify of the occasion is Planet Balkan Hackathon (https://serbiancaseforspace.com/#/hackathon ). It can pose three challenges:

1. Local weather change – assist native communities reply to local weather change in both proactive or reactive manner
2. Agriculture – assist farmers perceive and react to the results of the COVID-19 pandemic
3. Good cities – assist enhance city life in areas like sustainability, managing assets, development, and open information governance.

Planet Labs will present entry to its every day imagery in addition to excessive decision information. It is possible for you to to actually use actual time house information to assist the planet. It’s a small step for a software program programmer, however may lead to a large leap for the humanity . As stated earlier, the clock is ticking. Let’s get to work. I hope to see you on October 31^st.

Dalibor Djuran works at Planet as Director for Spacecraft Manufacturing and NPI. Previous to that, Dalibor was Managing Vice President at Gartner and as well as, he’s a Co-founder and COO of Drones-X Inc