Planet Labs maps out innovative disaster plan

PLANET Labs hopes to help tackle disasters such as bushfires, floods and deforestation with its plan to photograph Earth.

Planet Labs co-founder and chief technology officer Chris Boshuizen was named Global Australian of the Year by Advance in March. Picture: John Feder

PLANET Labs, the start-up co-founded by Australian entrepreneur, scientist and former NASA staffer Chris Boshuizen, hopes to help the world tackle climate disasters such as bushfires, floods and deforestation with its plan to photograph Earth in its entirety from space every day.

The San Francisco-based company, which has used off-the-shelf commercial parts including smart phone technology to slash the cost and size of a satellite, hopes to have a flock of 150 “Doves” — its version of a satellite — in space by the end of next year, up from about 70 at the moment.

That plan hit a hiccup last week when the Antares rocket carrying 26 of its satellites and a delivery for the international space station exploded, but Planet Labs said the mishap would not detract it from its mission.

“We found a way to minia­turise (satellites),” Mr Boshuizen said. “We can build them really cheaply and we can launch a lot more. The average age of an image in Google Maps is three years. We want to take a photo of the world at a very high resolution and publish a daily map.”

Planet Labs, of which Bos­huizen is chief technology officer, has raised $65 million in venture capital funding from Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, Industry Ventures, Draper Fisher Jur­vetson and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, among others.

It has not announced any of its customers, but Mr Boshuizen said they span sectors including government, insurance, financial services, resource management and agriculture.

“Our images show how agriculture in the developing world is changing,” he said. “For example, rice paddies are being flattened and replaced by pivoting watering systems. People have just been drawing circles over the planet.

“We have great photographs of the regions that have been cleared in Brazil (despite it being) denied in the media.”

Other uses include locating remote bushfires and environmental verification such as checking claims made by mining companies that they have returned land to its original condition.

Mr Boshuizen, who was in March named the Global Australian of the Year by Advance, which bills itself as the biggest ­global network of high-achieving expatriate Australians, said he is mentoring other young Australians who are looking to succeed on the world stage. “If I can get 20 other Australians into NASA and they start their own companies, that’s a win,” he said.