On: Skybox Imaging + Google

[etrautmann]

Does anyone know why you have to purchase a 2.4m dish antenna and two FULL RACKS of equipment to schedule image acquisitions and download images? Why does each customer need to be able to communicate with the satellites directly instead of via a web interface?

[jonah → etrautmann]

Maybe they're distributed ground stations and all clients are contributing to the network of receivers?

[7952 → jonah]

Yes, low orbit satellites need lots of ground stations, lots of storage, or lots of bandwidth.

[oostevo → etrautmann]

I believe the ground station is optional. It's for organizations who want their data _really_ fast, before it would be available on the web interface.