LONGMONT, Colo., Oct. 4, 2005 – DigitalGlobe® announced details of the company’s next generation of imaging systems, WorldView I and WorldView II. DigitalGlobe has been building both imaging systems concurrently. WorldView I, combined with QuickBird, will enable DigitalGlobe to have the two highest resolution commercial imaging satellites on-orbit for at least a year before any comparable system is launched. By 2008, DigitalGlobe’s constellation of high-resolution satellites will be unprecedented in the commercial satellite imaging industry, enabling commercial and government customers around the globe to access a broad selection of geospatial information products from a single source.
WorldView I, scheduled to launch no later than 2006, will be the most agile satellite ever flown commercially. The high-capacity, panchromatic imaging system features half-meter resolution imagery. With an average revisit time of 1.7 days and a swath width of 16 kilometers, WorldView I will be capable of collecting up to 500,000 square kilometers (200,000 sq. mi.) per day of half-meter imagery. WorldView I will also be capable of directly downlinking imagery to customer locations. The satellite will be equipped with state-of-the-art geo-location accuracy capability and will exhibit stunning agility with rapid targeting and efficient in-track stereo collection.
WorldView II is planned to launch no later than 2008. Operating at an altitude of 770 kilometers, WorldView II will enable DigitalGlobe to offer half-meter panchromatic resolution and 1.8- meter multispectral resolution. The WorldView II system will allow DigitalGlobe to substantially expand its imagery product offerings to both commercial and international customers with a more commercially desirable, higher performance product.
Added spectral diversity will provide the ability to perform precise change detection and mapping. WorldView II will incorporate the industry standard four multispectral bands (red, blue, green and near-infrared) and will also include four new bands (coastal, yellow, red edge, and near-infrared 2). The highly agile WorldView II will be capable of directly downlinking imagery to customer locations and will also have direct tasking capabilities.
“The addition of the WorldView satellite constellation will further establish DigitalGlobe as the satellite imagery leader, giving us a broad-reaching market position,” said Herb Satterlee, chairman and CEO of DigitalGlobe. “DigitalGlobe’s comprehensive imaging constellation, combining QuickBird and the WorldView satellites, will be capable of collecting more than 10 times the amount imagery at unprecedented accuracies of any current commercial imaging system. This will add an unrivaled level of products and services for our customers worldwide,” he added.
About DigitalGlobe
Longmont, Colo.-based DigitalGlobe (www.digitalglobe.com) is the clear leader in the global commercial Earth imagery and geospatial information market. The company’s technical superiority and innovation, unparalleled commitment to customer service, extensive business partner network and open systems philosophy make DigitalGlobe the preferred supplier of imagery products. DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird satellite is the world’s highest resolution commercial imaging satellite, and the company will launch its next-generation WorldView I and WorldView II satellites no later than 2006 and 2008, respectively. The company’s updated and growing ImageLibrary contains over one hundred million square kilometers of global imagery for countless mapping and planning needs.