Google has announced its plans to purchase Skybox Imaging, a startup that specializes in taking high-resolution images of the Earth via satellite, for half a billion dollars.
The deal isn't final yet as Google still has to go through the regulatory hoops of the Federal Communications Commission and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but both companies have already expressed their interest in working with each other in providing enhanced imagery for Google's digital maps and related services and possibly to provide satellite Internet services to places not yet connected to the Internet.
"Skybox's satellites will help keep Google Maps accurate with up-to-date imagery," says Google in its investor relations page. "Over time, we also hope that Skybox's team and technology will be able to help improve Internet access and disaster relief - areas Google has long been interested in."
Mountain View-based Skybox was established five years ago. However, it was only in November last year that the startup launched SkySat-1 into space, the first in its small fleet of 24 satellites designed to capture high-resolution images and 90-second videos with 30 frames per second of the surface of the Earth. SkySat-1 is specifically pointed at Tokyo, Bangkok, Baltimore, Las Vegas and Aleppo, Syria. It provides analytics about how these places change over time. With the $500 million Google acquisition looming up, it is unclear if Skybox will stay on schedule launching the remaining 23 satellites in its network.
Several industries can benefit from the use of Skybox's constantly updated images, including agriculture, shipping lines, insurance, energy and commodity trading, as per Skybox's website. With Google stepping into the picture, we will not just be seeing updated images on Google Maps. The acquisition could mean access to real-time information provided by Skybox's images. For example, a user can head over to Google to find out how many trees are there in a certain rainforest, or check out how many ships are currently docked in a particular harbor.
"Skybox and Google share more than just a zip code," writes Skybox in a blog post. "We both believe in making information (especially accurate geospatial information) accessible and useful."
Currently, Google sources its satellite images from companies whose main focus is in satisfying the appetite of governments with a penchant for information gathered discreetly via satellite. Its main supplier, DigitalGlobe, makes almost 90% of its revenue from its biggest client, the U.S. military, which pays billions of dollars to access images from DigitalGlobe's WorldView satellite.
Google has been trying to supply for itself what DigitalGlobe fails to do by flying jet planes to capture images for Google Maps, Google Earth and its other services relying on satellite information. However, the search company isn't contented with supplying stale images gathered five days ago. It wants freshly updated images, not to mention videos, that can provide accurate information in real-time. That's where Skybox comes in.
"Skybox will not be a commercial company, it will be a NASA for Google," predicts Brock Adam McCarty, chief of image reselling company Apollo Mapping.
Meanwhile, Google purchased drone company Titan Aerospace earlier this year. The acquisition was said to bolster Google's Project Loon, which aims to provide Internet via satellite to places in the world that are not connected to the Internet.
