In Focus

'In Focus' was a rideshare mission to low Earth orbit for Planet and Spaceflight Inc.’s customer Canon Electronics. The mission deployed a total of 10 satellites to precise and individual orbits from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand.

Planet had nine of their latest generation SuperDove satellites deployed to a 500km morning-crossing Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO). Each of the nine SuperDoves were integrated with and deployed from Rocket Lab’s Maxwell dispensers, the industry’s lightest CubeSat dispenser in its class. Planet’s Flock 4e’ of SuperDoves join the company’s constellation of Earth-observation satellites already on orbit providing medium-resolution global coverage and near-daily revisit.

The 10^th and final payload, Canon Electronics Inc.’s CE-SAT-IIB, was arranged by satellite rideshare and mission management provider Spaceflight Inc. CE-SAT-IIB is a technical demonstration microsatellite developed by Canon Electronics Inc. It has a middle-size telescope equipped with an ultra-high sensitivity camera to take night images of the Earth and small size telescopes which are suitable for CubeSat use.