Tyc said he thinks the social media aspect of UrtheCast will be a big part of the entire experience. “We’re looking at putting additional cameras up there for a second generation, and we expect to be up there for the life of the station, really,” he said. The cameras are expected to last at least five years, and Tyc expects them to be up there even longer. Tyc added that it will take two spacewalks to do the full installation. “We had to meet quite a strict set of requirements that the cameras are safe for cosmonauts and astronauts,” Tyc said, “as there can’t be any toxic substances because they will be inside the ISS before they are installed.” The video data of the Earth will be down-linked to ground stations around the planet and then displayed in near real time on the UrtheCast web platform. The UrtheCast team is working in an exclusive relationship with the Russian Aerospace giant RSC Energia (NASA is not involved at all), and cosmonauts on board the ISS will install the cameras. Credit: NASA’s Aqua satellite.Ĭurrent sponsors on the project from UrtheCast (pronunced “Earthcast”) include Roscosmos, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, the Discovery Channel, Energia, Unosat and RAL Space, Larson added. They will also be integrating the data with live social media feeds as well as opening up their API for app developers.

Additionally, a recent partnership agreement with the UN will see them offer real-time information on dynamic situations such as floods and mass movements of people during humanitarian disasters. The company’s aim is to make Earth video data more accessible to individuals and schoolchildren, who would log in on UrtheCast’s website, as well as the traditional customers of government and private companies. These should be installed on the station sometime in December 2013, Larson said, with data coming in the first quarter of 2014. Last week at the Canadian Space Society Summit, UrtheCast co-founder Wade Larson explained the camera setup will take place in phases, with Phase 1 of the project having two cameras facing the ground, with one having a fixed gaze and the other one featuring maneuverability to points of interest.

Live picture of earth from space