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William Marshall, also known as Will Marshall, is a physicist and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Planet, a satellite and Earth data company based in San Francisco, California. Marshall co-founded Planet with Chris Boshuizen and Robbie Schingler in 2010.

The company he co-founded and leads was the first in the world to launch a constellation of small and cheap satellites into low earth orbit, largely based on Marshall's vision and experiments prior to the company being founded. The revolutionary method has since been copied by Elon Musk's Starlink, and other organizations and countries, seeking to capitalize on the advancements in cheap consumer-grade electronics, small satellites and cheap launch options. He pioneered a vision of manufacturing hundreds or thousands of very small satellites using cheap consumer-grade technology from the cell-phone industry. These satellites are launched cheaply due to their low weight, utilized for approximately two years, and eventually burn up in orbit. They are then replaced by new satellites using the next generation of consumer-grade technology.

History

Marshall received his doctorate from Oxford University in Physics under the mentorship of Sir Roger Penrose and Dirk Bouwmeester, where he worked on experiments testing the foundations of quantum mechanics. While working as a scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, Marshall was on the science team for LCROSS, which first confirmed the presence of large quantities of water on the Moon, with implications for lunar settlement. Marshall researched orbital space debris remediation methods, including co-inventing a method for debris-debris collision avoidance using ground-based lasers, and served as co-principal investigator of PhoneSat, which tested smartphones for use in space and inspired Planet. Marshall has given two TED talks. He is a central figure in Ashlee Vance's book When the Heavens Went on Sale (2023), chapters one through seven are an in-depth biography and description of his career. In 2024 Marshall received an RPS (The Royal Photographic Society) Award for Environmental Responsibility, along side Robbie Schingler.

References

1. "Satellite imagery company Planet Labs is going public, backed by Google, BlackRock and Marc Benioff". CNBC. July 7, 2021. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
2. ^ Vance, Ashlee (2023). "Chapters 1 through 7". When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach. Ecco. ISBN 978-0062998880.
3. Marshall, William; Simon, Christoph; Penrose, Roger; Bouwmeester, Dik (2003). "Towards quantum superpositions of a mirror". Phys. Rev. Lett. 91 (13): 130401. arXiv:quant-ph/0210001. Bibcode:2003PhRvL..91m0401M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.130401. PMID 14525288. S2CID 16651036.
4. Colaprete, Anthony; Schultz, Peter; Heldmann, Jennifer; Wooden, Diane; Shirley, Mark; Ennico, Kimberly; Hermalyn, Brendan; Marshall, William; Ricco, Antonio; Elphic, Richard C.; Goldstein, David; Summy, Dustin; Bart, Gwendolyn D.; Asphaug, Erik; Korycansky, Don; Landis, David; Sollitt, Luke (2010). "Detection of Water in the LCROSS Ejecta Plume". Science. 330 (6003): 463–468. Bibcode:2010Sci...330..463C. doi:10.1126/science.1186986. PMID 20966242. S2CID 206525375.
5. "The Wet Side of the Moon". New York Times. November 19, 2009. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
6. Mason, James; Stupl, Jan; Marshall, William; Levit, Creon (2011). "Orbital debris–debris collision avoidance". Advances in Space Research. 48 (10): 1643–1655. arXiv:1103.1690. Bibcode:2011AdSpR..48.1643M. doi:10.1016/j.asr.2011.08.005. S2CID 118566583.
7. "How I built this, Planet: Will Marshall and Robbie Schingler, episode 383". NPR. December 13, 2021. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
8. "Tiny satellites show us the Earth as it changes in near-real-time". TED. 2014. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
9. "The mission to create a searchable database of Earth's surface". TED. 2018. Retrieved August 2, 2023.

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