A month ago, I blogged about the future of LandSat, public accessible earth imaging, and commercial providers of global remote sensing. One of the companies that I mentioned, DigitalGlobe, has a long relationship with Google Earth, dating back to its provision of image distribution to KeyHole, Earth’s progenitor.
On Tuesday, September 18, DigitalGlobe will launch its first next generation satellite, WorldView-1. WorldView-1 will be able to produce one-half meter resolution images, with geo-locational accuracy at roughly 10′ to 25′. It is conceivable that the satellite might have higher resolution capabilities, but the highest available commercial resolution permitted is half-meter. In addition to Google, and other companies like Garmin, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is expected to be a major contractor for WV-1’s imaging.
The Aviation Week Defense blog recently discussed imaging trends in July 2007:
What users want today is timeliness (which means more and hence less costly satellites, orbital mechanics being the awkward things they are) and multi-spectral imagery, which is a matter of relatively inexpensive electronics rather than a massive and costly lens.
The launch of WorldView-1 will be available as a live netcast on the Internet, courtesy of Boeing Integrated Defense. The live launch window is here:
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bls/missions/worldview-1/
The coverage will start Tuesday, September 18 at approximately 11:20 AM PDT.
The launch is scheduled for 11:35 AM PDT.