WorldView-1 is a commercial earth observation satellite owned by DigitalGlobe. It was launched September 18, 2007, and DigitalGlobe plans to launch another, similar satellite after its construction is finished in late 2008.[1] 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.[2]
WorldView-1, was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies. Ball Aerospace built the spacecraft bus and the camera (instrument) using the off-axis camera design identical to QuickBird with the instrument's focal plane being supplied by ITT Exelis. The camera is a 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 kilometers (290,000 sq mi) per day of half-meter imagery.[2]
WorldView-1 was partially financed through an agreement with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Some of the imagery captured by WorldView-1 for the NGA will not be available to the general public. However, WorldView-1 will free capacity on DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird satellite to meet the growing commercial demand for multi-spectral geospatial imagery.[2]
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