And all of this beneath industrial tile ceiling.

This is the home of Terra Bella—the satellite company, formerly known as Skybox, that Google purchased for $500 million in June 2014. In the next 18 months, it plans to put more than a dozen new satellites into orbit. This will increase its imagery “refresh rate”—that is, how often any one spot on Earth is photographed—from one new image every three days to four to five new images per day.

Terra Bella is part of a larger group of satellite companies that promise to transform the way we see Earth. Planet Labs is another: An independent startup based in San Francisco, it estimates that in the next 12 months, it will have more than 100 satellites beaming imagery down to Earth. That will give it an almost-daily imagery refresh rate. Twelve of those satellites are due to slip into orbit this Thursday, care of astronauts on the International Space Station.

More than two years ago, I looked at a class of startups that I said were making “Silicon Valley’s new spy satellites.” They were, at heart, technology companies of 2010s vintage: funded with venture capital, well-versed in simulating hardware with software, and comfortable with “the cloud” and all its metaphors of scale. But they were also space companies, committed to building custom machinery and getting it into orbit.

The profile of many of these organizations has grown since. Terra Bella has, of course, joined Alphabet. Planet Labs, which was flying just two test “doves” then, commands more than 35 now. Analysis companies, including Descartes Labs and Orbital Insight, have also sprouted up around the new bounty of imagery.

But however much they’ve expanded so far, the coming year will be decisive for many of these firms. By the summer of 2017, many promise daily or more-than-daily refresh rates. Within a few years, hundreds of Earth-observing satellites could float above the planet, each little more than a camera at the end of a massive (and affordable) chain of processing, computing, and distribution.

Or something could break: The market could falter, a couple key investments could dry up, and remote-sensing technology could be stuck at its current spot for another decade.

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There are more than a couple new-ish companies in the satellite industry. Urthecast, for instance, operates a high-definition camera on the Russian part of the International Space Station; the Vancouver-based corporation purchased two imagery satellites last year and says 16 more are on the way. Black Sky Global, a startup in Seattle that definitely doesn’t have an ominous name, says it plans to have 60 satellites operating by 2019. Other companies remain in “stealth mode,” meaning they’ve been founded but haven’t announced anything yet.