WASHINGTON -- A private remote sensing spacecraft is nearly ready to start snapping the highest resolution, commercially available images ever taken of the Earth.
The QuickBird satellite was lofted October 18 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. After total checkout, the eye-in-the-sky is to crank out high-resolution black and white pictures showing objects down to 2-feet across (61-centimeters). QuickBird is equipped to provide color imagery that can reveal objects 8-feet (2.44-meter) in size.
Buildings, roads, bridges and other detailed infrastructure should be clearly seen by the satellite's camera system. Details revealed by the satellite have only previously been seen by highly classified spycraft.
Operated by DigitalGlobe of Longmont, Colorado, QuickBird is to be the first in a constellation of remote sensing satellites the firm will launch in coming years.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation built QuickBird for DigitalGlobe.
Performing flawlessly
Herb Satterlee, president and Chief Executive Officer of DigitalGlobe, said that QuickBird provides the commercial markets of the world easy and inexpensive access to the most refined representation of our planet ever assembled.
Initial shakeout of the remote sensing spacecraft is underway, with QuickBird performing flawlessly, Chuck Herring, a DigitalGlobe spokesman told SPACE.com.
"We should start imaging in mid November and make first image samples available later in year, depending on areas of interest we can acquire," Herring said.
The total verification and calibration period for QuickBird is about 120 days, Herring said. "So we plan to start operations in the February timeframe. We plan to begin in first quarter by providing imagery to our master distributors and select customers. Second quarter we will open to our entire reseller network and open for full commercial operations by beginning of the third quarter," he said.
High hopes
According to the company, DigitalGlobe's intention is to establish a lead market position by providing the highest resolution satellite imagery products available.
The firm's business strategy is to beat out its competitors -- such as Space Imaging's IKONOS and the French-built SPOT satellites -- by creating a larger archive of images and the largest imaging footprint of Earth commercially available.
Since there are no plans to launch a comparable commercial satellite until at least 2004, DigitalGlobe believes it has a running start on living up to its plans.
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