GeoEye to Launch World’s Highest Resolution Commercial Earth-Imaging Satellite Sept. 4, 2008 | Revista Aérea
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GeoEye to Launch World’s Highest Resolution Commercial Earth-Imaging Satellite Sept. 4, 2008

Written by thomas · Filed Under Aeronautics News 

August 29, 2008

thomas

GeoEye logo. (PRNewsFoto/GeoEye)

THORTON, CO UNITED STATES
   

GeoEye-1 Satellite Launch to be Broadcast on the Internet

DULLES, Va., Aug. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — GeoEye, Inc. (Nasdaq:
GEOY), a premier provider of satellite, aerial and geospatial information,
announced today the launch of the world’s highest resolution, commercial
Earth-imaging satellite is scheduled for Sept. 4, 2008, from Space Launch
Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), California. The planned
launch time is 11:50:57 a.m. PDT (2:50:57 p.m. EDT). A Flight Readiness
Review was conducted on Aug. 28 and the launch vehicle, launch range, the
GeoEye-1 satellite, and all other program elements are ready for launch.

GeoEye-1 will be lifted into a near-polar orbit by a 12-story-tall
United Launch Alliance Delta II 7420-10 configuration launch vehicle. The
launch vehicle and associate support services were procured by Boeing
Launch Services. The GeoEye-1 satellite is expected to deploy the
spacecraft approximately 58 minutes after liftoff and will reach its proper
orbit about 90 minutes after launch. In order to achieve the proper orbit,
the launch window will only be open for 84 seconds. Once in orbit, GeoEye-1
will undergo system calibration and testing. The company expects to offer
imagery and products to customers in the mid- to late-October timeframe.

The GeoEye-1 Satellite

GeoEye-1, designed and built by General Dynamics Advanced Information
Systems, is the world’s highest resolution commercial imaging satellite.
Designed to take color images of the Earth from 423 miles (681 kilometers)
in space and moving at a speed of about four-and-a-half miles (seven
kilometers) per second, the satellite will make 15 earth orbits per day and
collect imagery with its ITT-built imaging system that can distinguish
objects on the Earth’s surface as small as 0.41-meters (16 inches) in size
in the panchromatic (black and white) mode. The 4,300-pound satellite will
also be able to collect multispectral or color imagery at 1.65-meter ground
resolution. While the satellite will be able to collect imagery at
0.41-meters, GeoEye’s operating license from NOAA requires re-sampling the
imagery to half-meter resolution for all customers not explicitly granted a
waiver by the U.S. Government.

The satellite will be able to see an object the size of home plate on a
baseball diamond but also map the location of an object that size to within
about nine feet (three meters) of its true location on the surface of the
Earth without need for ground control points. Together, GeoEye’s IKONOS and
GeoEye-1 satellites can collect almost one million square kilometers of
imagery per day.

With the ability to revisit any location on the globe every three days,
and at lesser resolution more frequently, GeoEye-1 will enable customers to
receive imagery updates on a regular basis and is ideal for large-scale
mapping projects. This capability will benefit a broad array of industries
including national defense and intelligence, online mapping, state and
local governments, environmental monitoring and land use management, oil
and gas, utilities, disaster management, insurance and others.

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