San Francisco-based startup Planet Labs delivered the 28 tiny satellites that will make up its "Flock 1" fleet to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia earlier this month. The constellation is slated to blast off for the International Space Station aboard a private cargo vessel on Dec. 15, then be deployed from the orbiting lab a month or so later, Planet Labs officials said. 

 

Flock 1 is designed to deliver frequent, low-cost and high-resolution imagery of the planet that could help monitor deforestation, track natural disasters and benefit humanity in a number of other ways, company officials say. [See photos of (and by) Planet Labs' spacecraft]