Skybox Imaging Close to Being Sold to Google

According to Techcrunch Google is close to buying Skybox Imaging for over $1 billion. Skybox has plans for a constellation of 24 satellites of which the first, SkySat-1, went operational November 2013. Skybox released its first HD video last December.
Skybox bills themselves as providing the human story “by approaching daily global activity as the world’s largest data science problem.” It seems this Bay Area resident has some synergies with Google, hence the interest in the company.

The Skybox satellites capture sub-meter resolution color imagery and high-resolution full motion video.

In February Skybox selected Space Systems Loral to build 13 new low earth orbit imaging satellites. Six of those satellites will launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in late 2015 by Orbital aboard the Minotaur-C space launch vehicle.

Skybox has SkySat-2 and SkySat-3 scheduled to launch on two separate Russian launch vehicles this June and early 2015 respectively.

Related

– Smallsats on the Rise, Space Quarterly Magazine by SpaceRef