![]() ![]() All this was done by an outfit that began life in a garage. The firm makes what are, in effect, private-sector surveillance satellites, photographing the entire planet and giving everyone from hedge funds to journalists the kind of imagery that not even governments had two decades ago. Planet Labs helped pioneer the idea that lots of cheap mass-produced satellites could accomplish far more than a few fancy expensive ones. Two of them have been strikingly successful. They are Planet Labs, which makes imaging satellites, and Astra, Firefly and Rocket Lab, all of which make rockets. After spending months hanging around offices and launch-pads, talking to engineers and bosses, he profiles four other space hopefuls in “When the Heavens Went on Sale”. Mr Vance-who published a well-received biography of Mr Musk in 2015-is more interested in the group of swashbuckling startups that have tried to follow in SpaceX’s contrails. SpaceX flies more rockets, and carries more satellites, than every other spacefaring entity combined.īut SpaceX serves only to set the stage for the story told in Ashlee Vance’s new book. A decade and a half later, the plucky insurgent has become the incumbent. It thus helped prove that a private firm run on a relative shoestring could do something which had, hitherto, been the preserve of a handful of nation-states and giant aerospace firms. After three failed attempts, SpaceX, a company set up by a comparatively obscure dotcom millionaire called Elon Musk, at last got one of its Falcon-1 rockets into orbit. ![]()
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