DigitalGlobe's new satellite yields first images

A first shot from DigitalGlobe's WorldView-2 satellite shows the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas.

(Credit: DigitalGlobe)

The Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center San Antonio, Texas, where DigitalGlobe is showing off its first images for the GeoInt 2009 conference.

(Credit: DigitalGlobe)

Twelve days after it launched WorldView-2 into orbit, DigitalGlobe has released its first images from the satellite, which will supply high-resolution photography for Google's and Microsoft's online mapping services.

The first images are of two locations in San Antonio, Texas, where the company is showing off its work at the GeoInt 2009 Symposium this week, and of Dallas Love Airport.

The quality of the images should improve over these first shots, taken Monday. "More refinements to early-stage images can be expected as the ongoing check-out and calibration continues," DigitaGlobe said.

Microsoft and Nokia sponsored the WorldView-2 launch, but the former's Bing and the latter's Navteq won't be the only services to get the imagery. They'll share it with Google, which has been the sole online beneficiary of images from GeoEye-1, a satellite launched last year by DigitalGlobe rival GeoEye.

The new satellite is able to capture imagery with a resolution fine enough to detect features as small as 0.46 meters, or 1 1/2 feet, on the ground, though federal regulations permit DigitalGlobe to offer images with only a maximum resolution of 0.5 meters for general commercial use, the Longmont, Colo.-based DigitalGlobe said. Other DigitalGlobe satellites with sub-meter resolution in orbit already are QuickBird and WorldView-1.

"WorldView-2 is expected to improve the speed and rate of imagery delivery to the government and commercial markets with large-scale collection capacity and daily revisit rates," meaning that the satellite can photograph the same site multiple times during the same day, the company said. The satellite can capture multispectral imagery--eight bands of light, or more than what's visible to humans--though at a lower resolution of 1.8 meters.

Dallas Love Airport as photographed by WorldView-2.

(Credit: DigitalGlobe)

Photos: A high-res, high-tech satellite launch

[Super2online]

I'm wondering. After they sell the highest resolution images to the government, and the lower resolution images to companies like Google, Microsoft and others, what's left? It seems to me the governments regulations on this seriously impair their ability offer improved images commercially.

[hafenbrack]

That's exactly the point, from the Governments point of view...

[SactoGuy018]

It won't take long before we see the North Korean missile sites and the Iranian nuclear sites from this satellite.

[knowles2]

Unless the US government prevent the imaging of such site, after all the US would not want independent analyst of Iran nuclear site, especially if that analyst goes against there own intelligence agencies views.

[Shankland]

Geoeye, another satellite imagery company, released photos of the recently disclosed Iranian nuclear site: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10362358-264.html

[knowles2]

True but they needed that out into the open for there PR war on Iran, if they thought there was single thing in that photo that contradicted there story they would of blocked.

[HyraxX]

So why is this news when it does not benefit anyone but the CIA ? The pictures are going to be no different than the ones we already see.

[Shankland]

High-resolution satellite imagery actually is not available for many parts of the world, and it's out of date for many others. But yes, the CIA doubtless will benefit.

[HyraxX]

Better yet. The title of this article should be, Terrorists win!