Sen

Sen is a UK space media company co-founded by Charles Black (CEO) — previously an executive at major music labels including EMI and Universal Music — with a mission to democratize access to the orbital perspective by streaming live, continuous 4K Ultra HD video from space freely to anyone with an internet connection, applying the media industry's content distribution model to space imagery.

Since March 2024, Sen operates three Ultra HD video cameras installed on the ESA Bartolomeo external payload hosting platform attached to the Columbus module on the International Space Station. The Bartolomeo platform — operated by Airbus as a commercial service offering power and high-bandwidth data links to external ISS payloads — provides Sen's cameras with continuous power and the data throughput needed to stream multiple 4K video feeds simultaneously. The cameras capture Earth from approximately 400 km altitude with a field of view showing continent-scale geography, storm systems, city lights at night, sunrise and sunset transitions at orbital velocity, and the shimmering blue curvature of the planet against black space — the view that has profoundly impacted astronaut cognition (the "Overview Effect") made continuously available to anyone.

Sen streams 20+ hours of daily coverage across sen.com and YouTube, building a publicly accessible archive of orbital Earth video unprecedented in volume and resolution. The free availability is deliberately philosophical: Sen's founders believe the orbital perspective — seeing Earth as a unified, fragile, borderless whole — has social value as a tool for environmental awareness and global citizenship, as evidenced by decades of astronaut testimony about the Overview Effect.

Revenue comes from commercial licensing of premium footage for broadcast, advertising, and film production; partnerships with media organizations and streaming platforms; and eventually from dedicated small satellites to reduce dependence on ISS hosting. Sen competes with static Earth observation imagery companies (Planet, Maxar) for visual media applications, and against NASA's own lower-resolution ISS live feeds, while occupying a unique niche as the only provider of continuous professional-grade 4K streaming orbital video available to the general public.