Boeing, through its commercial launch business, successfully launched the GeoEye-1 satellite on 6th September 2008 aboard a Delta II rocket procured from United Launch Alliance (ULA).
Liftoff occurred at 11:50 a.m. Pacific time from launch pad SLC-2W at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The ULA Delta II rocket deployed the spacecraft approximately 58 minutes after liftoff. GeoEye-1 will have the highest resolution of any commercial imaging system, capable of collecting images with a ground resolution of 16 inches (.41 meters) in panchromatic (black-and-white) mode. Virginia-based GeoEye [NASDAQ: GEOY] is the premier provider of geospatial information for the national security community, strategic partners, resellers and commercial customers.
"This launch signifies Boeing's continued commitment to provide our commercial customers with the Delta II vehicle, which has a 98.5 percent launch success rate," said Ken Heinly, director of Boeing's Launch Products & Services and Boeing Launch Services president.
About Boeing
Boeing is the world's leading aerospace company and the largest manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft combined. Additionally, Boeing designs and manufactures rotorcraft, electronic and defense systems, missiles, satellites, launch vehicles and advanced information and communication systems. As a major service provider to NASA, Boeing operates the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. The company also provides numerous military and commercial airline support services. Boeing has customers in more than 90 countries around the world and is one of the largest U.S. exporters in terms of sales.
Boeing has a long tradition of aerospace leadership and innovation. We continue to expand our product line and services to meet emerging customer needs. Our broad range of capabilities includes creating new, more efficient members of our commercial airplane family; integrating military platforms, defense systems and the warfighter through network-centric operations; creating advanced technology solutions that reach across business units; e-enabling airplanes and providing connectivity on moving platforms; and arranging financing solutions for our customers.
Headquartered in Chicago, Boeing employs more than 160,000 people across the United States and in 70 countries. This represents one of the most diverse, talented and innovative workforces anywhere. More than 83,800 of our people hold college degrees--including nearly 29,000 advanced degrees--in virtually every business and technical field from approximately 2,800 colleges and universities worldwide. Our enterprise also leverages the talents of hundreds of thousands more skilled people working for Boeing suppliers worldwide.
About GeoEye-1
Resolution
GeoEye-1 will have the highest resolution of any commercial imaging system and be able to collect images with a ground resolution of 0.41-meters or 16 inches in the panchromatic or black and white mode. It will collect multispectral or color imagery at 1.65-meter resolution or about 64 inches, a factor of two better than existing commercial satellites with four-band multispectral imaging capabilities. While the satellite will be able to collect imagery at 0.41-meters, GeoEye's operating license from the U.S. Government requires re-sampling the imagery to 0.5-meter for all customers not explicitly granted a waiver by the U.S. Government.
GeoEye-1 will have the highest resolution of any commercial imaging system and be able to collect images with a ground resolution of 0.41-meters or 16 inches in the panchromatic or black and white mode. It will collect multispectral or color imagery at 1.65-meter resolution or about 64 inches, a factor of two better than existing commercial satellites with four-band multispectral imaging capabilities. While the satellite will be able to collect imagery at 0.41-meters, GeoEye's operating license from the U.S. Government requires re-sampling the imagery to 0.5-meter for all customers not explicitly granted a waiver by the U.S. Government.
Accuracy
Besides unsurpassed spatial resolution of 0.41-meters or about 16 inches, GeoEye-1 is designed to be able to offer three-meter geolocation accuracy, which means that customers can map natural and man-made features to within three meters (about 9 feet) of their actual location on the surface of the Earth without ground control points. This degree of inherent accuracy has never been achieved in any commercial imaging system and will remain unchallenged even when next-generation commercial systems are launched in the coming years.
Agility
GeoEye-1, a polar-orbiting satellite, will be able to revisit any point on Earth once every three days or sooner. Though it stands two stories high and weighs more than two tons, GeoEye-1 is designed to deftly train the ITT camera on multiple targets during a single orbital pass and is able to rotate or swivel forward, backward or side-to-side with robotic precision. This unrivaled agility will enable it to collect much more imagery during a single pass.
Frequency
GeoEye-1 will make 15 orbits per day flying at an altitude of 681 kilometers or 423 miles with an orbital velocity of about 7.5 km/sec or 16,800 mi/hr. Its sun-synchronous orbit allows it to pass over a given area at about 10:30 a.m. local time every day. Given its altitude and sun-synchronous orbit, field of view and superior resolution GeoEye-1 can “revisit” any point on the globe every three days or sooner, depending upon the required look angle. The satellite will complement GeoEye's current IKONOS system and will collect imagery about 40 percent faster for panchromatic and 25 percent faster for multispectral collections. Together, the IKONOS and GeoEye-1 satellites can collect almost one million sq km of imagery per day.
Volume
In the panchromatic mode the satellite is capable of collecting up to 700,000 square kilometers in a single day, an area about the size of Texas, and in the multispectral mode 350,000 square kilometers per day; the equivalent of photographing in color the entire State of New Mexico. This capability is ideal for large-scale mapping projects. Our customers will have assured access to high-resolution, high-quality commercial imagery well into the 2015 timeframe.
Camera
GeoEye-1’s optical telescope, detectors, focal plane assemblies and high-speed digital processing electronics are capable of processing 700 million pixels per second. GeoEye-1's agile camera allows for side-to-side extensions of the camera's 15.2 kilometer (9.44 miles)-wide swath width or multiple images of the same target during a single pass to create a stereo picture. The camera and electronics represent a 5-times gain in power efficiency, a 10-times improvement in weight efficiency and 3-times advance in cost efficiency.
Products
GeoEye-1 customers will have a choice of ordering basic, ortho-rectified or stereo imagery as well as imagery-derived products, including Digital Elevation Models (DEM’s) and Digital Surface Models (DSM’s), large area mosaics and feature maps. These GeoEye-1 products will serve a wide variety of applications for:
Defense
National and Homeland Security
Air and Marine Transportation
Oil and Gas
Energy
Mining
Mapping and Location-based Services
State and Local Government
Insurance and Risk Management
Agriculture
Natural Resources and Environmental Monitoring
Ground Stations
GeoEye upgraded a centralized command and control ground station facility at its headquarters in Dulles, Virginia. This operations center will send tasking and operating commands to the satellite and receive data downlinks from it. Three other stations will be operated or leased by GeoEye in Barrow, Alaska; Tromso, Norway and Troll, Antarctica. The four ground stations will provide the primary data reception needed due to the large volume of imagery that will be captured by the satellite. The Thornton, Colorado regional operational facility has also been upgraded as a back-up ground station for GeoEye-1.
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