DigitalGlobe
Encyclopedia
DigitalGlobe, of Longmont, Colorado
, USA, is a 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 $19.00 each to raise $279 million in capital.
in anticipation of the 1992 Land Remote Sensing Policy Act (enacted in October 1992) which permitted private companies to enter the satellite imaging business. Its founder was Dr Walter Scott, who was joined by co-founder and CEO Doug Gerull in late 1992, The company had received the first high resolution commercial remote sensing satellite license issued under the 1992 Act. The company was initially funded with private financing from Silicon Valley
sources and interested corporations in N. America, Europe, and Japan. Dr. Scott was head of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories "Brilliant Pebbles" and "Brilliant Eyes" projects which were part of the Strategic Defense Initiative
. Doug Gerull was the executive in charge of the Mapping Sciences division at the Intergraph Corporation. The company's first remote sensing license from the United States Department of Commerce
allowed it to build a commercial remote sensing satellite
capable of collecting images with 3 m (9.8 ft) resolution.
In 1995, the company became EarthWatch Incorporated, merging WorldView with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.'s commercial remote sensing operations. In September 2001, EarthWatch became DigitalGlobe.
In 2011, DigitalGlobe was inducted into the Space Foundation
's Space Technology Hall of Fame
for its role in advancing commercial Earth-imaging satellites.
launch vehicle. It included a panchromatic
camera with a 3 m (9.8 ft) resolution and a multispectral camera with a 15 m (49.2 ft) resolution. Early Bird 1 was the first commercial satellite to be launched from the Svobodny Cosmodrome.
, launched on October 18, 2001, is DigitalGlobe's primary satellite. It was built in partnership with Ball Aerospace and Orbital Sciences
, and launched by a Boeing Delta II. It is in a 450 km altitude, –98 degree inclination sun-synchronous orbit
. An earlier launch attempt resulted in the loss of QuickBird-1. It included a panchromatic camera with a 60 cm (23.6 in) resolution and a multispectral camera with a 2.4 m (7.9 ft) resolution.
built WorldView-1
.
It was launched on September 18, 2007 from Vandenberg Air Force Base
on a Delta II
7920-10C. Launch services were provided by United Launch Alliance
. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
is expected to be a major customer of WorldView-1 imagery. It included a panchromatic only camera with a 50 cm (19.7 in) maximum resolution. It was the most powerful commercial satellite when launched.
. It was launched on October 8, 2009. DigitalGlobe partnered with Boeing
commercial launch services to deliver WorldView-2 into a sun-synchronous orbit
. The satellite includes a panchromatic sensor with a 46 cm (18.1 in) maximum resolution and a multispectral sensor of 184 cm (72.4 in)
and the United States Department of Defense
's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
(NGA). Much of Google Earth
and Google Maps
high resolution-imagery is provided by DigitalGlobe, as is imagery used in TerraServer
. DigitalGlobe's main competitors are GeoEye
(formerly Orbimage and Space Imaging) and Spot Image
.
Longmont, Colorado
Longmont is a Home Rule Municipality in Boulder and Weld counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. Longmont is located in Northern Colorado. Longmont is the 13th most populous city in the State of Colorado. The word "Longmont" comes from Longs Peak, a prominent mountain named for explorer Stephen H....
, USA, is a commercial vendor of space imagery and geospatial content, and operator of civilian remote sensing
Remote sensing
Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon, without making physical contact with the object. In modern usage, the term generally refers to the use of aerial sensor technologies to detect and classify objects on Earth by means of propagated signals Remote sensing...
spacecraft. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
on 14 May 2009, selling 14.7 million shares at $19.00 each to raise $279 million in capital.
Origins
Worldview Imaging Corporation was founded in January 1992 in Oakland, CaliforniaOakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
in anticipation of the 1992 Land Remote Sensing Policy Act (enacted in October 1992) which permitted private companies to enter the satellite imaging business. Its founder was Dr Walter Scott, who was joined by co-founder and CEO Doug Gerull in late 1992, The company had received the first high resolution commercial remote sensing satellite license issued under the 1992 Act. The company was initially funded with private financing from Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
sources and interested corporations in N. America, Europe, and Japan. Dr. Scott was head of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories "Brilliant Pebbles" and "Brilliant Eyes" projects which were part of the Strategic Defense Initiative
Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...
. Doug Gerull was the executive in charge of the Mapping Sciences division at the Intergraph Corporation. The company's first remote sensing license from the United States Department of Commerce
United States Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is the Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. It was originally created as the United States Department of Commerce and Labor on February 14, 1903...
allowed it to build a commercial remote sensing satellite
Earth observation satellite
Earth observation satellites are satellites specifically designed to observe Earth from orbit, similar to reconnaissance satellites but intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, meteorology, map making etc....
capable of collecting images with 3 m (9.8 ft) resolution.
In 1995, the company became EarthWatch Incorporated, merging WorldView with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.'s commercial remote sensing operations. In September 2001, EarthWatch became DigitalGlobe.
In 2011, DigitalGlobe was inducted into the Space Foundation
Space Foundation
The Space Foundation is a nonprofit organization that supports the global space industry through information and education programs. It is a resource for the entire space community - industry, national security organizations, civil space agencies, private space companies and the military around the...
's Space Technology Hall of Fame
Space technology hall of fame
The Space Technology Hall of Fame annually honors organizations and individuals that "transform technology originally developed for space exploration into products that help improve the quality of life here on Earth"....
for its role in advancing commercial Earth-imaging satellites.
Early Bird 1
Early Bird 1 was launched for Earth Watch Inc. launched December 24 1997 from the Svobodny Cosmodrome by a Start-1START-1
Start-1 is a Russian satellite launch vehicle based on the RT-2PM Topol, a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile developed by Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology.- History :...
launch vehicle. It included a panchromatic
Panchromatic
Panchromatic film is a type of black-and-white photographic film that is sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light. A panchromatic film therefore produces a realistic reproduction of a scene as it appears to the human eye. Almost all modern photographic film is panchromatic, but some types are...
camera with a 3 m (9.8 ft) resolution and a multispectral camera with a 15 m (49.2 ft) resolution. Early Bird 1 was the first commercial satellite to be launched from the Svobodny Cosmodrome.
QuickBird
QuickBirdQuickBird
QuickBird is a high-resolution commercial earth observation satellite, owned by DigitalGlobe and launched in 2001 as the first satellite in a constellation of three scheduled to be in orbit by 2008...
, launched on October 18, 2001, is DigitalGlobe's primary satellite. It was built in partnership with Ball Aerospace and Orbital Sciences
Orbital Sciences Corporation
Orbital Sciences Corporation is an American company which specializes in the manufacturing and launch of satellites. Its Launch Systems Group is heavily involved with missile defense launch systems...
, and launched by a Boeing Delta II. It is in a 450 km altitude, –98 degree inclination sun-synchronous orbit
Sun-synchronous orbit
A Sun-synchronous orbit is a geocentric orbit which combines altitude and inclination in such a way that an object on that orbit ascends or descends over any given point of the Earth's surface at the same local mean solar time. The surface illumination angle will be nearly the same every time...
. An earlier launch attempt resulted in the loss of QuickBird-1. It included a panchromatic camera with a 60 cm (23.6 in) resolution and a multispectral camera with a 2.4 m (7.9 ft) resolution.
WorldView-1
Ball AerospaceBall Aerospace
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. is a manufacturer of spacecraft, components, and instruments for national defense, civil space and commercial space applications. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ball Corp...
built WorldView-1
WorldView-1
WorldView-1 is a commercial earth observation satellite owned by DigitalGlobe. It was launched September 18, 2007, and DigitalGlobe plans to launch another, similar satellite after its construction is finished in late 2008...
.
It was launched on September 18, 2007 from Vandenberg Air Force Base
Vandenberg Air Force Base
Vandenberg Air Force Base is a United States Air Force Base, located approximately northwest of Lompoc, California. It is under the jurisdiction of the 30th Space Wing, Air Force Space Command ....
on a Delta II
Delta II
Delta II was an American space launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas. Delta II is part of the Delta rocket family and was in service from 1989 until November 1, 2011...
7920-10C. Launch services were provided by United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. ULA was formed in December 2006 by combining the teams at these companies which provide spacecraft launch services to the government of the United States. U.S...
. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States with the primary mission of collecting, analyzing and distributing geospatial intelligence in support of national security. NGA was formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency ...
is expected to be a major customer of WorldView-1 imagery. It included a panchromatic only camera with a 50 cm (19.7 in) maximum resolution. It was the most powerful commercial satellite when launched.
WorldView-2
Ball Aerospace built WorldView-2WorldView-2
WorldView-2 is a commercial Earth observation satellite owned by DigitalGlobe. WorldView-2 provides commercially available panchromatic imagery of .5 m resolution, and eight-band multispectral imagery with resolution....
. It was launched on October 8, 2009. DigitalGlobe partnered with Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
commercial launch services to deliver WorldView-2 into a sun-synchronous orbit
Sun-synchronous orbit
A Sun-synchronous orbit is a geocentric orbit which combines altitude and inclination in such a way that an object on that orbit ascends or descends over any given point of the Earth's surface at the same local mean solar time. The surface illumination angle will be nearly the same every time...
. The satellite includes a panchromatic sensor with a 46 cm (18.1 in) maximum resolution and a multispectral sensor of 184 cm (72.4 in)
Customers
DigitalGlobe’s customers range from urban planners, to the U.S. federal agencies, including NASANASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
and the United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States with the primary mission of collecting, analyzing and distributing geospatial intelligence in support of national security. NGA was formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency ...
(NGA). Much of Google Earth
Google Earth
Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...
and Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
high resolution-imagery is provided by DigitalGlobe, as is imagery used in TerraServer
Terraserver.com
TerraServer is a commercial website specializing in aerial and satellite imagery which was originally launched in 1997. It is owned and operated by TerraServer.com, Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina...
. DigitalGlobe's main competitors are GeoEye
GeoEye
GeoEye Inc. is a commercial satellite imagery company based in Herndon, Virginia that is the world's largest space imaging corporation....
(formerly Orbimage and Space Imaging) and Spot Image
Spot Image
Spot Image, a public limited company created in 1982 by the French Space Agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales , the IGN, and Space Manufacturers is a subsidiary of EADS Astrium...
.