[OSM-talk] Satellite for OSM

[MP]

> 2.5m sounds about the same as Y!, so its even enough for rudimentary
>  building mapping. but thats the black-and-white figure, the colour
>  resolution is about 5m. :-)

You can merge them and get something with almost same quality as 2.5m
color resolution.

>  also, would it be worth it as a PR stunt for qinetiq to just use up
>  whatever spare capacity they have when maneuvering or between clients
>  and give us whatever gets photographed...? anyone know anyone at
>  qinetiq?

Maneuvering? The satellite does not have fuel for maneuvers - it have
some fuel to make small corrections on the orbit and shift perhaps few
meters to avoid collision with debris and other satellites, but not
fuel to make any significant changes to the orbit.

Landsat have 16 days period in which the orbital pattern repeats:
http://landsathandbook.gsfc.nasa.gov/handbook/handbook_htmls/chapter5/chapter5.html

I suspect TopSat will have similar orbital characteristics, so you'll
have to choose the time when the satellite is flying over area of
interest.

Also, their website says "The satellite is designed to return its data
directly to a mobile ground station immediately after collecting".

I suspect the satellite have little or no means of storing the photos,
so it will just broadcast it "down" to mobile station. So I suspect
you'll need to put up some mobile station somewhere near the
photographed area.

Martin