‘A lump of coal is scooped onto a truck bed in Australia, driven to a port, loaded on a ship, piloted across the ocean to a dock in China, piled into a train car and delivered to a power plant. And it would all happen under the watchful eyes of coal traders, if a fleet of new satellite tracking firms can deliver on ambitious promises.’

The Bloomberg team explores the incredible rise in the number of satellites that were launched in 2017 and looks at the reasons behind this increase.