Google Is Buying Into Satellite Manufacturing To Improve Maps

Google has announced plans to acquire US aerospace start-up Skybox Imaging for $500 million (£298m) in cash.

Skybox develops not just the satellite hardware, but also the image recognition and analytics tools used to make sense of the data captured by its arrays of sensors. Google says it will use this technology to improve the online maps service.

Eventually, the same satellites could also be used to connect remote communities to the Internet – last week, a report in The Wall Street Journal suggested that the company is planning to put a fleet of 180 autonomous devices in orbit for just such purposes.

Pictures from space

Skybox Imaging was founded in 2009 in Mountain View, California as part of a Stanford graduate entrepreneurship course. In the space of a year, the company managed to attract $3 million in investment and by 2012, it was already building its first high resolution photography satellite.

Skybox satellites are smaller and lighter than the typical communications satellites, and can orbit at a lower altitude. The imaging and mapping service was originally aimed at a variety of industries including agriculture, mining, insurance, manufacturing and finance.

Now, this capability will be used exclusively by Google, as long as the deal receives approval from the US regulators.

“Skybox and Google share more than just a zip code. We both believe in making information (especially accurate geospatial information) accessible and useful,” states a post on the Skybox website.

“And to do this, we’re both willing to tackle problems head on — whether it’s building cars that drive themselves or designing our own satellites from scratch.

“This has been an incredible journey, and we look forward to working with our new Google family and the world at-large to write the next chapter.”

Skybox is the second major aerospace company acquired by Google in the space of 12 months: in April, it already paid an undisclosed amount for Titan Aerospace, a manufacturer of solar-powered drones from New Mexico which was reportedly also approached by Facebook.

Last year, Google experimented with broadband delivery via solar-powered balloons as part of the initiative codenamed ‘Project Loon’.

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