DigitalGlobe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| DigitalGlobe | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Type | Private |
| Founded | 1992 |
| Headquarters | Longmont, CO USA |
| Key people | Jill Smith, CEO |
| Employees | 350 |
| Website | www.digitalglobe.com |
DigitalGlobe, of Longmont, Colorado, USA, is a privately held commercial vendor of space imagery and geospatial content, and operator of civilian remote sensing spacecraft. The company offers the world's highest resolution commercial satellite imagery and maintains the most current and accurate content library.
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[edit] Origins
The company was founded in 1992, as WorldView, with a license from the United States Department of Commerce to build a commercial remote sensing satellite. In 1995, the company became EarthWatch Incorporated, merging WorldView with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.'s commercial remote sensing operations.[1] In September 2001, EarthWatch became DigitalGlobe.[2]
[edit] Satellites
[edit] Early Bird 1
Early Bird 1 was launched for Earth Watch Inc. launched 1997-12-24 from the Svobodny Cosmodrome by a Start-1 launch vehicle.[3] It included a panchronmatic camera with a 93 m resolution and a multispectral camera with a 15 m resolution. Early Bird 1 was the first commercial satellite to be launched from the Svobodny Cosmodrome.
[edit] QuickBird
QuickBird, launched on October 18, 2001,[1] is DigitalGlobe's primary satellite. It was built in partnership with Ball Aerospace and Orbital Sciences, and launched by a Boeing Delta II. It is in a 450 km altitude, –98 degree inclination sun-synchronous orbit. An earlier launch attempt resulted in the loss of QuickBird-1.
[edit] WorldView-1
Ball Aerospace built WorldView-1.[4] It was launched at 18:35 GMT on September 18, 2007 from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a Delta II 7920-10C. Launch services were provided by United Launch Alliance. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is expected to be a major customer of WorldView-1 imagery.[5]
[edit] WorldView-2
Ball Aerospace is currently building WorldView-2.[4] It is scheduled for launch in mid-2009.[6] DigitalGlobe has partnered with Boeing for launch of the WorldView satellites on Delta II.[7]
[edit] Customers
DigitalGlobe’s customers range from urban planners, to the U.S. federal agencies, including NASA[2] and the United States Department of Defense's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).[8] As well, much of Google Earth and Google Maps high resolution-imagery is provided by DigitalGlobe,[9] as is imagery used in Microsoft's TerraServer.[10] DigitalGlobe's main competitors are GeoEye (formerly Orbimage and Space Imaging) and Spot Image.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Digital Globe - History. Retrieved on 2006-04-19.
- ^ a b Scientific Data Purchase. NASA. Retrieved on 2006-04-19.
- ^ Early Bird 1. NASA.
- ^ a b DigitalGlobe announces Ball building WorldView 2 satellite. Spaceflight Now. Retrieved on 2007-02-02.
- ^ A Satellite's First Breath. O'Reilly Media.
- ^ DigitalGlobe Press Room. DigitalGlobe. Retrieved on 2008-06-13.
- ^ Boeing Selected to Co-Develop and Launch Next DigitalGlobe Imaging Satellite. Boeing (2004). Retrieved on 2006-04-19.
- ^ National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Awards $12 Million ClearView Contract to DigitalGlobe (2006, March 16).
- ^ Hafner, Katie and Saritha Rai. "Governments Tremble at Google's Bird's-Eye View", The New York Times, 2005, December 20.
- ^ TerraServer.com - Image Providers. Retrieved on 2006-04-19.
