Giving Compass' Take:

• Pacific Standard profiles a San Francisco factory called Planet that makes small satellites, which can help advance climate research, along with other conservation-related utilities — but there are some lingering privacy concerns.

• Planet wants to track large-scale changes, and there is plenty of upside to acquiring more data on our environment. But will they be able to assuage critics who say that the technology has the potential to be misused?

• Here's how satellites could be used to help map the future of humanitarian responses.

The most prolific satellite factory in the world is, as you might expect, full of complicated instruments and awash in fluorescent light, but pretty much everything else about it is a surprise. For one thing, it's in downtown San Francisco, tucked in an anonymous building in the trendy tech-hub SOMA neighborhood. It's also not particularly large. It features no robots, very little automation, and an assembly line with just a few steps — the satellites only require a set of 10 tools to build.

I'm here to tour the place during its grand opening, scheduled to coincide with San Francisco's Global Climate Action Summit. That timing is not a coincidence. Planet, the company that runs this factory, is a self-styled environmentalist start-up with the motto, "Using space to help life on Earth."

Chester Gillmore, Planet’s vice president of manufacturing, is our tour guide, narrating with rapid-fire enthusiasm the various elements of the assembly line, from the logic boards in pink bubble wrap to the assembly kits that sit on baker's racks. Yes, baker's racks. The satellites that Planet builds are about the size of a shoebox or a loaf of bread; a technician can make three in a day. In the last four years, the company has manufactured and launched nearly 300 of these mini-satellites. Using its current fleet of 150, Planet is now imaging the entirety of the Earth's landmass every 24 hours. It's an impressive feat with enormous implications for environmental research and climate monitoring — as well as for security and privacy.

Read the full article about the company making California's new climate satellite by Alissa Greenberg at Pacific Standard.