210,000,000 pixels

We just finished calibrating our sensors for Landmapper. Here’s a look inside the satellite, showing the three 71 megapixel sensors lined up. The sensors are all the same; we will just install a different filter in front of each. There are red and green filters, as well as a near infrared (near IR). The near IR sensor sits at the bottom so we can protect it from heat exposure which impacts the image quality of near IR the most.

Three 71 megapixel sensors equals 210 megapixel camera which gives us 210,000,000 pixels per image. One megapiexel equals 1,000,000 pixels. By comparison, professional cameras are somwhere in the range 24–36 megapixels while the iPhone6 has an 8 megapixel camera. This means we’re packing a ton of data into each image and since the primary mission of Landmapper is to create imagery for analysis, we need this density of information.