An ambitious effort to broadcast real-time streaming video of Earth from space is closer to reality, after a new influx of cash and some new partnerships. By spring 2013, everyone on Earth will be able to watch the planet from the most unique vantage point ever built, the International Space Station.
We first told you about the Canadian startup UrtheCast (pronounced Earth-cast) last year, and the first cameras were supposed to launch in 2012. But the company has been raising money and working on its two high-definition cameras, while cosmonauts are in training to move the cameras from the cargo ferry to the station’s underside. The cameras are due to be finished in the next few months, according to the BBC. Meanwhile, the company, which is based in Calgary, said it plans to go public later this fall.
One camera will be fixed and the other will swivel around, according to Ian Tosh, an engineer at camera-builder RAL Space near Oxford, England. He told the BBC the images would be about a meter (3.3 feet) per pixel. That’s about the same as Google Earth’s satellite images of your house, where you can definitely see features like your car in the driveway.
via Popular Science
Image: NASA
