The WorldView-1 satellite was launched on Tuesday, September 18, 2007, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. WorldView-1 is the first of two new next-generation satellites DigitalGlobe, a leader in the global commercial Earth imagery and geospatial information market, plans to launch. Shortly after the launch, a DigitalGlobe ground station received a downlink signal confirming that the satellite successfully separated from its launch vehicle and had automatically initialized its onboard processors. WorldView-1 is currently undergoing a calibration and check-out period and will deliver imagery soon after. First imagery from WorldView-1 is expected to be available prior to October 18, the six-year anniversary of the launch of QuickBird, DigitalGlobe’s current satellite.
WorldView-1, built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation with the imaging sensor provided by ITT Corporation, is a high-capacity, panchromatic imaging system featuring half-meter resolution imagery. With an average revisit time of 1.7 days, WorldView-1 is capable of collecting up to 750,000 square kilometres (290,000 square miles) per day of half-meter imagery. Frequent revisits will increase image collection opportunities, enhance change detection applications and enable accurate map updates and will provide more accurate data to Google Earth. The satellite is capable of collecting; storing and down linking more frequently updated global imagery products than any other commercial imaging satellite in orbit, allowing for expedited image capture, processing and delivery to customers where speed is a driving factor. WorldView-1 is equipped with state-of-the-art geo-location accuracy capability and exhibits unprecedented agility with rapid targeting and efficient in-track stereo collection.
More information:
http://media.digitalglobe.com/index.php?s=press_release_popup&ITEM=135
More information:
http://media.digitalglobe.com/index.php?s=press_release_popup&ITEM=135