Canon's Earth Imaging Satellite successfully launched

Canon's earth imaging satellite, CE-SAT-IIB has successfully launched into space by Rocket Lab out of their spacesport located on the east coast of New Zealand.  It's a micro-satellite equipped with three types of cameras, one of them being an M100, another being a G9X Mark II, as according to Gunter's space page.

• Primary telephoto: a super high sensitivity camera with a mirror diameter of 200 mm. The ground resolution is approximately 5.1 m with a frame size of 3.5 km by 2.3 km.
• Secondary telephoto: an EOS M100 with a mirror diameter of 87 mm. The ground resolution is approximately 5 m with a frame size of 5.6 km by 3.7 km
• Wide-Angle: PowerShot G9X MarkII

The high sensitivity camera used in the satellite does sound kind of cool according to Canon “With the newly developed super high sensitivity camera, CE-SAT-2B is capable of observing the Earth during night time,” Canon said in a press release. “The satellite is equipped with three types of cameras including Canon’s mirrorless camera and compact digital camera. CE-SAT-2B will go through a two-year demonstration experiment for forthcoming production of cassegrain reflectors as series.”

Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck said after the launch;

Congratulations to Planet on the addition of their latest SuperDoves to their constellation and to the team at Canon Electronics on the deployment of their latest tech demonstration satellite. Electron has once again delivered a smooth ride to orbit and precise deployment for our individual rideshare customers.”

Canon is already working on version III an even small micro-satellite.

To see some of the images taken with Canon's first satellite of this nature (CE-SAT-IB) go over to Canon's Space webpage: https://en.canon-elec.co.jp/space/

(Main image via Rocket Lab)

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