''GeoEye-1'' is a high-resolution

Earth observation satellite An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, ...

owned by

DigitalGlobe DigitalGlobe is an American commercial vendor of space imagery and geospatial content, and operator of civilian remote sensing spacecraft. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange on 14 May 2009, selling 14.7 million shares at US ...

, launched in September 2008. The satellite was acquired in the 2013 purchase of GeoEye.

History

On 1 December 2004,

General Dynamics General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded, aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales, and 5th largest in the Uni ...

C4 Systems announced it had been awarded a contract worth approximately to build the ''OrbView-5'' satellite. Its sensor is designed by the

ITT Exelis ITT may refer to: Communication * Infantry-Tank Telephone, a device allowing infantrymen to speak to the occupants of armoured vehicles. Mathematics *Intuitionistic type theory, other name of Martin-Löf Type Theory * Intensional type theory ...

. The satellite, now known as ''GeoEye-1'', was originally scheduled for launch in April 2008 but lost its 30-day launch slot to a U.S. government mission which had itself been delayed. It was rescheduled for launch 22 August 2008 from

Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida * Vandenberg Sp ...

aboard a

Delta II Delta II was an expendable launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas. Delta II was part of the Delta rocket family and entered service in 1989. Delta II vehicles included the Delta 6000, and the two later Delta 7000 va ...

launch vehicle. The launch was postponed to 4 September 2008, due to unavailability of the Big Crow telemetry-relay aircraft. It was delayed again to 6 September because

Hurricane Hanna The name Hanna or Hannah has been used for eleven tropical cyclones worldwide: five in the Atlantic Ocean and six in the Western Pacific Ocean (four regionally in the Philippines by PAGASA). The latter spelling has also been used for one extratropi ...

interfered with its launch crews. The launch took place successfully on 6 September 2008 at 18:50:57 UTC. The ''GeoEye-1'' satellite separated successfully from its

launch vehicle at 19:49 UTC, 58 minutes and 56 seconds after launch.

Specifications and operation

''GeoEye-1'' provides

panchromatic Panchromatic emulsion is a type of black-and-white photographic emulsion that is sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light. Description A panchromatic emulsion renders a realistic reproduction of a scene as it appears to the human eye, altho ...

and multispectral imagery at

nadir The nadir (, ; ar, نظير, naẓīr, counterpart) is the direction pointing directly ''below'' a particular location; that is, it is one of two vertical directions at a specified location, orthogonal to a horizontal flat surface. The direc ...

in swaths. The spacecraft is in a

Sun-synchronous orbit A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is ...

at an altitude of and an inclination of 98 degrees, with a 10:30 a.m. equator crossing time. ''GeoEye-1'' can image up to 60 degrees off

. It is operated out of

Dulles, Virginia Dulles () is an unincorporated area in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States, and is part of the Washington metropolitan area. The headquarters of Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems and ODIN Technologies, as well as the former headquarters of ...

. At the time of its launch, ''GeoEye-1'' was the world's highest resolution commercial Earth-imaging satellite. ''GeoEye-1'' was manufactured in

Gilbert, Arizona Gilbert is a town in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, located southeast of Phoenix within the city's metropolitan area. Incorporated on July 6, 1920, Gilbert was once known as the "Hay Shipping Capital of the World". It is the fifth-lar ...

, by

and the first image was returned on 7 October of

Kutztown University Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (Kutztown University or KU) is a public university in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) and is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher ...

in Pennsylvania.

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

, which had its logo on the side of the rocket, has exclusive online mapping use of its data. While ''GeoEye-1'' is capable of imagery with details the size of , that resolution was only available to the U.S. government. Google has access to details of . Prior maximum commercial imagery was . The

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of natio ...

and Google paid a combined for the satellite and upgrades to GeoEye's four ground stations.

2009 anomaly

In December 2009 GeoEye announced it had suspended imagery collections by ''GeoEye-1'' for a few days, citing an irregularity in the downlink antenna. "The irregularity appears to limit the range of movement of ''GeoEye-1'' downlink antenna, which may in turn affect ''GeoEye-1'' ability to image and downlink simultaneously," GeoEye said at a press conference. However, the satellite continued with normal operations shortly thereafter, though with diminished simultaneous imaging-and-downlink capability for non-U.S. clients.

References

External links

''GeoEye-1''
at Digitalglobe.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Geoeye-1 Commercial imaging satellites of the United States Google Spacecraft launched in 2008 Spacecraft launched by Delta II rockets fi:GeoEye#GeoEye 1

History

Specifications and operation

2009 anomaly

See also

References

External links