[woodgrainz]

Presumably the "9X higher" imagery is due to the fact that this company's satellites will fly much lower than the current commercial fleet. OP says as much in his post -- they'll fly "in the atmosphere."

So no Nobel-prize level achievements needed in optical breakthroughs.

[slingnow]

Do you have any data to back up that simply lowering a satellite can achieve a 9X increase in image resolution? Or are you merely speculating?

[enriquto]

If you divide the height of the satellite by X then the resolution is multiplied by X. This is Thales theorem [0]. What else do you need?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercept_theorem