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I got a pop up ad for nearmap.com. It is updated every few months, but not daily. It covers urban areas. I suppose that means no remote desert areas. It costs something, but you have to sign up to see how much. I gave it a miss.
I can't help but believe that the Ukraine pictures are from spy satellites that were repositioned. Would the U.S. military rely on private satellites for critical coverage?
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(2022-04-12, 11:54 AM)trailhound Wrote: I can't help but believe that the Ukraine pictures are from spy satellites that were repositioned. Would the U.S. military rely on private satellites for critical coverage?[/align]
No, but perhaps the US does not want to reveal the real resolution of its spy sats? That was an issue back in the days of high flights and analog cameras. Anyway, what we are seeing in the press is not necessarily what the US military is relying on - I agree they are unlikely to rely on commercial sats!
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(2022-04-12, 11:54 AM)trailhound Wrote: I got a pop up ad for nearmap.com. It is updated every few months, but not daily. It covers urban areas. I suppose that means no remote desert areas. It costs something, but you have to sign up to see how much. I gave it a miss.
I can't help but believe that the Ukraine pictures are from spy satellites that were repositioned. Would the U.S. military rely on private satellites for critical coverage?
No, the US has their own satellites, both military and intelligence. However, there are a bunch of companies with their own satellites which are used for a variety of purposes. Google obviously has a bunch for mapping/AI stuff. But there are other companies out there which sell the imagery to organizations which use it for all sorts of purposes. The Ukraine content is super popular with companies that want the latest images for analysis/reporting purposes.
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Maxar Technologies is the source of the amazing Ukraine satellite imagery I've seen. I did try their free archive, but the most recent imagery for my area of interest is June 2021.
There's also soar.earth. I was able to get imagery of that little area from March 30. But it was 10 meter resolution, so not sufficient detail to answer my question.
That's as far as I got with this before I went on a hiking/camping trip!
