Satellite underworld
The Earthly imprints of commercial remote sensingMia Bennett
While remote sensing instruments such as satellites monitor Earth from space, their operations still affect people and places on the ground. The remote sensing industry is growing as commercial satellite firms expand their Earth observation, surveillance, and telecommunications services. These space-based activities are touching down in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. In Shetland, Norway, and Sweden, spaceports are being built to provide commercial launch facilities and ground stations. These developments may compel additional infrastructure construction, from subsea tunnels in Shetland to roads in Norway. To critique the intersection of “frontier-making” in the Arctic and outer space, through ethnography, expert interviews, and remote sensing analysis of land use/land over change, this research will investigate the political and economic drivers of these three spaceports, their cultural impacts, and their environmental footprints. The results promise to contribute to geographies and anthropologies of outer space and to inform policies relating to the commercial space industry.
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