Planet does not offer nighttime imagery as a product due to the difficult nature of collecting the imagery.
Typically optical satellites need the earth backlit for imagery to be of use. Our satellites use their time in the Earth's shadow to downlink imagery taken when the Earth is backlit. During this time uplinks are also sent with collection plans for new taskings, which makes it difficult to image at the same time.
Additionally, our satellites when tasked use star trackers to align themselves with the Earth. At night, these trackers cannot line up properly with the Earth without the Earth being lit.
Comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.