Earth Satellite Corporation (EarthSat) was an early pioneer in the commercial use of Earth observation 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....

s. Founded in 1969, EarthSat was first headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 and later moved its offices to Bethesda, Maryland

Bethesda, Maryland

Bethesda is a census designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House , which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda...

 and finally to Rockville, Maryland

Rockville, Maryland

Rockville is the county seat of Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is a major incorporated city in the central part of Montgomery County and forms part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. The 2010 U.S...

 in the late 1980s. In 2001, EarthSat was acquired by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.

MacDonald Dettwiler

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. is a Richmond, British Columbia-based Canadian aerospace, information services and products company, employing over 3000 people throughout Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, under the MDA brand name....

 (MDA) of Vancouver, British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

. In August 2005, EarthSat was incorporated as MDA Federal Inc., the U.S. operation of MDA Geospatial Services.

EarthSat pioneered the use of 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...

 for petroleum, mineral and groundwater exploration. It later expanded in to satellite and aerial image processing

Image processing

In electrical engineering and computer science, image processing is any form of signal processing for which the input is an image, such as a photograph or video frame; the output of image processing may be either an image or, a set of characteristics or parameters related to the image...

, weather services and geographic information system

Geographic Information System

A geographic information system, geographical information science, or geospatial information studies is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data...

s. EarthSat products were derived from NASA's Landsat program

Landsat program

The Landsat program is the longest running enterprise for acquisition of satellite imagery of Earth. On July 26, 1972 the Earth Resources Technology Satellite was launched. This was eventually renamed to Landsat. The most recent, Landsat 7, was launched on April 15, 1999. The instruments on the...

, Canada's RADARSAT-1

RADARSAT-1

Radarsat-1 is Canada's first commercial Earth observation satellite.-Mission:It was launched at 14h22 UTC on November 4, 1995 from Vandenberg AFB in California, into a sun-synchronous orbit above the Earth with an altitude of 798 kilometers and inclination of 98.6 degrees...

 and an entire list of Earth observation satellites.

In August 1998, NASA

NASA

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...

 contracted EarthSat to produce Landsat GeoCover - a positionally accurate orthorectified Landsat Thematic Mapper and Multispectral Scanner imagery covering the majority of the Earth's land mass. The contract was part of the NASA Scientific Data Purchase which was administrated through NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center

John C. Stennis Space Center

The John C. Stennis Space Center , located in Hancock County, Mississippi, at the Mississippi-Louisiana border, is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility.- History :...

. Geocover 2000 is one of the global satellite image products used in NASA World Wind

NASA World Wind

World Wind is an open-source virtual globe developed by NASA and the open source community for use on personal computers. Old versions need Microsoft Windows but the more recent Java version, , is cross platform and provides a suite of . The World Wind Java version was awarded in November 2009...

.

GeoCover was later enhanced to EarthSat NaturalVue, a natural color Landsat 7

Landsat 7

Landsat 7, launched on April 15, 1999, is the latest satellite of the Landsat program. Landsat 7's primary goal is to refresh the global archive of satellite photos, providing up-to-date and cloud-free images. The Landsat Program is managed and operated by the USGS, and data from Landsat 7 is...

derived circa year 2000, orthorectified, mosaicked and color balanced digital image dataset covering the entire land area of the Earth except for the high latitude polar regions.

External links

• EarthSat Renamed MDA Federal Inc
• MDA Federal Inc