Planet Labs and the ‘smallsat swarm’ model
Planet demonstrated that large numbers of cheap satellites, launched opportunistically, could create a new kind of Earth-observation product: frequent refresh instead of exquisite single-image quality. The narrative shifted from “best image” to “most recent image,” and data pipelines became as important as payloads.
Constellation thinking moved from theory to a business strategy startups could actually execute.
Set expectations for cadence-driven EO services and accelerated competition across imaging modalities.
iQPS is applying the same swarm logic to radar—where the value spikes when the world is dark or clouded over.
