Space News by Jeff Foust — July 11, 2017
WASHINGTON — As Planet prepares to complete its initial constellation of remote sensing satellites, a ground station it built in northern Canada to communicate with those spacecraft remains offline because of delays in receiving a government license there.
The problem Planet has faced winning approval for its ground station, industry representatives argue, is a sign of outdated remote sensing regulations in Canada that could deter other companies from operating in the country.
Planet completed the ground station at Inuvik, in the Northwest Territories, early this year. The company said the latitude of the site, 68 degrees north, coupled with a fiber optic link to the town and a lack of radiofrequency interference in the area, made the location ideal as a major ground station to collect images from its constellation of cubesats.
“It could be, and we were planning on it being, incredibly important,” said Mike Safyan, director of launch for Planet, in a July 6 interview. “Once it comes on line, it will be able to furnish somewhere between a quarter and a third of the ground station capacity that we need for our entire fleet.”
That initial fleet of Dove cubesats will be completed with the July 14 launch of 48 satellites on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur. That will bring the total number of satellites operated by Planet to 190, including five RapidEye and seven SkySat spacecraft.
More:
http://spacenews.com/planet-ground-station-caught-in-canadian-regulatory-limbo/
