3 ms·

Do the small sats have an advantage by being closer to the target, needing less zoom?

• xvedejas 6y ago
  Higher orbits are much more expensive to launch a satellite into. I think partially because of this, commercial imaging satellites will be in the range of 600-800km altitude unless there's a really good reason otherwise. So I don't think that distance would account for a very large factor.
• Fordec 6y ago
  Yes. The difference between 100k-400km in LEO is far different from 22000km in GEO. Planet Labs updated their licenses for a few satellites a couple of months back to gain double digit percentage resolution quality increases by dropping the orbit (I think it was somewhere about by 50km to the lower end of that range) for example. The trade off is that you hit more atmosphere in that lower orbit and will reenter the atmosphere much sooner. So that increases the number of launches you need to do to replenish your fleet. Which is $$$. Also, they have greater relative velocities so require better targeting and command & control technology to compensate.