Canadian cameras will provide spectacular views of Earth from space

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield provided us with some spectacular views of the Earth while he was on board the International Space Station, and now another Canadian effort is going to provide those kinds of views on a 24/7 basis.

Urthecast (pronounced Earth-cast), is a Vancouver-based company that will be installing two HD cameras on the International Space Station in November, which will stream near-live images from the station, that anyone can view, at any time, from their desktop. The company says that there will be about a one-hour delay between the time the pictures are taken and when they go up on the website.

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The first pieces of the Urthecast platform were delivered to the space station on the latest Progress cargo vessel, which launched into orbit on Sunday. This platform will be mounted on the underside of the station's Russian module sometime in the near future, in preparation for the two HD cameras that the company is sending up in late November. One camera will capture video, which will stream to the company's website. The other camera will take still snapshots.

Wade Larson, the president and COO of Urthecast gave a talk at the TEDxWaterloo conference at the end of May:

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Not only will this stream images as the station orbits, but individuals, schools, businesses and governments can purchase time on the cameras to take images of specific events or locations. The images will have about a 5-metre resolution, so there won't be any chances of capturing a selfie from space, but you should be able to catch a live view of your neighborhood.

Don't worry about this having military involvement, though. The agreements in place for the International Space Station specify that can will only be used for peaceful applications.

(Photo courtesy: NASA)

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