Tag: satellite imagery

DigitalGlobe selects Raytheon as satellite imaging payload provider

Solution doubles DigitalGlobe’s capacity to collect 30-centimeter commercial satellite imagery.

Raytheon Company has been selected by DigitalGlobe as the next-generation WorldView Legion satellite imaging constellation payload provider.

Under the contract, Raytheon will deliver the telescopes, detectors and combined electronics to Space Systems Loral, the WorldView Legion space vehicle integrator.

Raytheon’s new payload doubles DigitalGlobe’s capacity to capture multispectral and 30 cm imagery, while tripling to quadrupling the company’s capacity to image high-demand areas.

Once the WorldView Legion constellation is on orbit, DigitalGlobe’s combined constellation will be able to image the most rapidly changing areas on Earth every 20 to 30 minutes, from sunup to sundown. WorldView Legion will begin launching in 2020.

“We’re leveraging 45 years of extensive global experience in space imaging to provide DigitalGlobe with an unmatched view of the world from space,” said Rick Yuse, Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems president.

Raytheon’s payload solution maximizes efficiencies while maintaining quality, extending mission life, delivering a larger field of view and increasing coverage area.

“DigitalGlobe is proud to select Raytheon to develop the imaging payloads for our next-generation WorldView Legion satellite constellation,” said Walter Scott, DigitalGlobe founder, EVP and CTO. “We have exceptional confidence in the quality, performance and value of Raytheon’s instrument design, which will give our customers even greater insights into global events of significance and allow them to make critical decisions with confidence for many years to come.”

October 10, 2017
High-resolution Earth observation satellites ready for launch

Space Systems Loral (SSL), a provider of satellites and spacecraft systems, built the six high-resolution small satellites for Planet for its SkySat Earth observation constellation — a fleet Planet gained through the acquisition of the Terra Bella business from Google in April 2017.

Six SSL-built small satellites for Planet’s Earth observation constellation have arrived at Vandenberg AFB for launch. (Photo: SSL)

The satellites will double Planet’s high-resolution imaging capabilities and help provide information about the physical world.

The satellites, called SkySat 8 through 13, are each about 60 x 60 x 95 centimeters, weigh about 100 kilograms, and capture sub-meter color imagery and up to 90-second clips of HD video with 30 frames per second.

“Small satellites and Earth observation satellites are a growing focus for SSL,” said Dario Zamarian, group president of SSL. “SSL is known for working very collaboratively with our customers and it has been a great pleasure for our team to work together with Planet. For these satellites we have taken a fresh approach to manufacturing, learning from our GEO experience but also looking for new and more efficient processes that in turn also inform our large satellite manufacturing.”

Working together with the seven SkySats already on orbit, the new satellites will dramatically increase Planet’s high-resolution imaging capabilities, enabling multiple imaging passes in a single day. These capabilities, combined with Planet’s more than 170 Dove satellites and their advanced software analytics platform, make it possible to derive timely insights from any location in the world.

The Planet constellation provides a broad range of data, tools, and analytical services that help leaders in business and humanitarian sectors solve complex problems.

“These SkySats double the amount of high-resolution data that we can capture and serve to users, and will power insights, inform smart decisions, and most importantly, help make the world a better and safer place,” said Will Marshall, co-founder and chief executive Sofficer of Planet. “The highly experienced team at SSL has been helpful and responsive as we work together to get the satellites prepared for launch.”

SSL has deep experience in building and integrating some of the world’s most powerful and comprehensive solutions for services such as communications, Earth observation, in-orbit servicing, space robotics, and exploration.

Four SkySats built by SSL were launched in September 2016, and SSL is currently building an additional eight LEOs for Planet in its SmallSat manufacturing facility in Palo Alto, California, where the company takes an innovative approach to satellite design, assembly and test.

September 5, 2017
DigitalGlobe releases satellite imagery of Houston

DigitalGlobe released satellite imagery of Houston after Hurricane Harvey hit.

Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Gulf Coast of Texas — just southwest of Houston — on Aug. 25. According to DigitalGlobe, the hurricane packed sustained winds at more than 130 miles per hour and has been identified as the largest single rainmaking event in continental U.S. history.

The images show downtown Houston, George Bush Intercontinental Airport and the interstate highways, which are relatively dry. Significant flooding remains in towns east and north of Houston, including Kingwood, Highlands and Channelview, the company says.

Images courtesy of © 2017 DigitalGlobe

Images courtesy of © 2017 DigitalGlobe

Images courtesy of © 2017 DigitalGlobe

Images courtesy of © 2017 DigitalGlobe

Images courtesy of © 2017 DigitalGlobe

September 5, 2017
Boundless partners with Planet to expand image access
Boundless, an open GIS company, has announced a strategic partnership with Planet, the integrated aerospace and data-analytics company that operates history’s largest fleet of Earth-imaging satellites. The partnership enables Boundless customers to access the massive library of high-quality Planet imagery and fast-loading imagery basemaps within Boundless Connect.

Starting today, Boundless Desktop users can access this content through the Boundless Connect plugin. Planet content is also accessible through Boundless Suite and Exchange subscriptions.

“This partnership significantly advances the content available through Boundless Connect, and expands our ability to provide high-quality imagery to Boundless users,” said Anthony Calamito, vice president of product for Boundless. “This represents a major step forward in providing our growing user base with valuable insights through Planet’s content. We are excited about this partnership and all the capabilities that will be delivered to our users, now and in the future.”

A Planet image of Bingham Canyon Mine, Salt Lake County, Utah, taken March 10, 2013.

The partnership with Planet will provide access to:
- Basemaps – Automated basemaps optimized for clear seasonal coverage, completeness and visual quality, perfect for map backdrops. In addition, quarterly or monthly timelapse basemaps gives users access to the latest imagery.
- Image Tiles from PlanetScope – 4-band (RGB and NIR) imagery for visual or analytic use.
- Image Tiles from RapidEye – 5-band (RGB, NIR, and Red Edge) imagery for visual and analytic use.
“This partnership is a huge step forward in delivering the most extensive and up-to-date satellite imagery catalog and basemaps to the broader geospatial community,” said Alex Bakir, vice president of product marketing for Planet. “Boundless’ open, flexible platform pairs perfectly with Planet’s data and platform services, and gives Boundless users the tools and content needed to integrate seamlessly into their workflows. We are very excited to be working with Boundless and look forward to what is to come.”

Boundless offers an open GIS ecosystem through a combination of technology, products and experts that gives enterprises deeper intelligence and insights using location-based data.

The Boundless platform is built upon open source technology and open APIs that generate actionable location intelligence across third-party apps, content services and plugins for enterprise applications.

In November 2016, the company extended its proven GIS platform with Boundless Connect, a subscription service to the most comprehensive repository of GIS resources, and Boundless Desktop, a full-featured, professional desktop GIS, bringing a powerful ecosystem of geospatial knowledge, tools and resources to the enterprise.
May 31, 2017
Top 10 satellite images tell the story of 2016

The year 2016 was full of political, environmental and global events that will have lasting impacts all around the world.

In the spirit of pictures being worth a thousand words, DigitalGlobe is offering a top 10 list of satellite images that defined 2016.

Here is the first, for January. Click here to see the full list.

The Skellig Islands were one of the filming locations for top-grossing Star Wars: The Force Awakens. (Image: DigitalGlobe)

January 26, 2017
NGA contracts with Planet for small satellite imagery

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has signed a $20 million introductory contract with Planet that will provide small satellite collection and coverage of most of the Earth’s landmass.

The agreement is a step toward harnessing the potential, capabilities and services of the small sat and commercial imagery environment.

The NGA will have access to a global imagery refresh every 15 days of most of Earth’s landmass through the new contract. Planet is a commercial imagery provider operating the largest constellation of Earth-imaging satellites.Its feed, known as the Planet Feed, will be used across the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG) and select members of the civil federal community. The NSG is the operating framework supported by producers, consumers or influencers of geospatial intelligence, or GEOINT.

“Improving our profession means further committing to the use of innovative capabilities being developed and deployed by commercial data providers and analytic companies for mission accomplishment,” said NGA Director Robert Cardillo at the May 2016 GEOINT Symposium in Washington, D.C. “Our commercial space partners will provide meaningful, higher revisit capabilities this year and we look forward to turning their exciting potential into our mission reality.”

The introductory contract includes a seven-month period of performance, beginning Sept. 15 and valued at $20 million.

The Planet Feed includes multispectral imagery from constellations at 3-5 meter and 6.7 meter resolutions. The imagery products will include unrectified and orthorectified images and orthomosaic single-pass tiles. The global scope of coverage and high temporal frequency of collection from Planet provides NGA with new data sources to support the agency’s many missions including foundation GEOINT, humanitarian assistance, disaster response and intelligence.

“Planet’s mission to provide timely, global imagery to empower informed, deliberate and meaningful stewardship of the planet is directly in line with our mission,” said John Charles, NGA commercial imagery lead. “We’re no longer simply admiring the potential of small satellites and their persistent capabilities, we’re harnessing that potential.”

Autumn in New Hampshire on Oct. 17. (Photo: Planet)

Planet designs, builds, and operates a constellation of Earth imaging nano-satellites. The global scope of coverage and high temporal frequency of collection from Planet will provide NGA with new data sources to use for geospatial intelligence analysis.

Commercial GEOINT Activity. Earlier this year, NGA, together with the National Reconnaissance Office, also launched a new office to synchronize activities for collection and analytic capabilities that can benefit both agencies.

Commercial GEOINT Activity (CGA) allows both agencies to assess current capabilities and develop strategies to ensure the timely and successful integration of commercial innovations that will benefit NGA and NRO.

This activity serves as a voice for NGA and NRO to the commercial GEOINT enterprise. The CGA conducts joint assessments, recommends investment decisions, and engages user communities. It advises NGA and NRO on synchronizing joint acquisition activities for vendors who can provide both collection and analytic capabilities to benefit the agencies. The CGA also develops strategies to access, acquire and integrate commercial GEOINT capabilities.

The CGA began operations on Sept. 30.

October 31, 2016
Lockheed Martin to launch DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-4 satellite on Friday

Lockheed Martin is set to launch the WorldView-4 high-resolution imaging satellite for DigitalGlobe aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on Sept. 16. WorldView-4, also built by Lockheed Martin, will capture photos and data about Earth.

With the WorldView-4 satellite, DigitalGlobe more than doubles its ability to deliver images of Earth at 30-centimeter resolution — sharp enough to identify the make of an automobile. WorldView-4 will orbit the Earth every 90 minutes, capturing 600,000 square miles of imagery everyday.

Artist’s rendering of the DigitalGlobe WorldView-4 satellite in orbit. (Image: Lockheed Martin)

Rocket/Payload: Atlas V 401 flying the WorldView-4 mission for customer DigitalGlobe.

Location: Space Launch Complex 3 East at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Date/Time: Friday, Sept. 16, 2016

Launch Time: The launch window opens at 11:30 a.m. PDT and closes at 11:44 a.m. PDT. Separation occurs approximately 20 minutes after liftoff.

Mission Description: This mission will deliver the WorldView-4 satellite into a 617 km, sun-synchronous orbit for DigitalGlobe, the global leader in earth imagery and information about our changing planet.

By leveraging DigitalGlobe’s advanced constellation scheduling system to operate in concert with WorldView-3, WorldView-4 will more than double DigitalGlobe’s coverage of the world’s highest-resolution 30 cm commercial satellite imagery.

Once launched, the satellite will orbit earth every 90 minutes, traveling 17,000 miles per hour and capturing as much as 680,000 square kilometers of the Earth’s surface daily (18 terabytes) – the equivalent of the land area of Texas.

Also aboard the launch will be seven U.S. Government-owned CubeSats that will be deployed after separation of the WorldView-4 satellite.

Launch Provider: Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services is the exclusive provider of Atlas V rockets to all non-U.S. government customers. With dedicated launch sites and unparalleled orbital insertion accuracy, Atlas V is unmatched for performance, reliability and schedule assurance.

Updates: To keep up-to-speed with updates to the launch and learn more about the WorldView-4 mission visit www.lockheedmartin.com/worldview4.

September 15, 2016
Free Landsat Viewer brings Earth into focus

A free web tool has been launched for browsing satellite imagery from Landsat 8 — the Landsat Viewer. The tool was created by the start-up company Eos Data Analytics.

EOS Data Analytics is an automatic cloud-based GIS analysis service. It uses a combination of satellite imagery, geospatial data, customer workflow information and consumer behavior principles to create deep, comprehensive GIS analysis.

The Landsat Viewer is based on a huge open data archive, Landsat on AWS. It can generate common indices on-the-fly, and users are able to download the selected bands.

Here are a few sample images using the new viewer:

The North Sea water surface looks like a deep universe with a myriad of stars (pan sharpen RGB):

“Pacmans” in Saudi Arabia.

Every time a user chooses the scene, zooms in/out or changes the bands, the image in the browser is generated on the fly from the raw data stored in the cloud. In the same way, it is delivered to the browsers on tablets and smartphones.

Learn more on the company’s blog.

August 23, 2016
WorldView-4 satellite heads to Vandenberg for September launch

Built by Lockheed Martin, the WorldView-4 satellite will expand DigitalGlobe’s constellation of high-accuracy, high-resolution satellites, and double the availability of 30-centimeter resolution imagery for commercial and government customers.

Final preparations are underway at Lockheed Martin to ship DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-4 Earth imaging satellite to Vandenberg Air Force Base for a Sept. 15 launch.

The Lockheed Martin team is completing final satellite testing and checkout before shipment. Testing includes calculating the weight and center of gravity of WorldView-4, completing a health check of major systems, and testing out image collection and downlinking capability.

“The high-resolution and high-accuracy images taken by WorldView-4 will support DigitalGlobe’s worldwide customer base,” said Carl Marchetto, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Commercial Space. “DigitalGlobe’s smart imagery serves hundreds of thousands of end-users charged with the safety and security of nations, and enables the maps and geospatial applications relied on by billions of consumers.”

“Only the DigitalGlobe constellation, with the addition of WorldView-4, offers the highest quality, and most comprehensive global coverage of our changing planet through 2030, so our customers can be confident they will have the information to make critical decisions,” said Walter Scott, founder and chief technology officer, DigitalGlobe. “WorldView-4 will help us continue to transform the way we see the world, and advance our mission of keeping our planet and its people safe and secure.”

Once launched, WorldView-4 will double DigitalGlobe’s coverage of the world’s highest resolution imagery and increase the rate at which it grows its 15-year library of time-lapse high-resolution imagery. WorldView-4 will orbit Earth every 90 minutes, traveling 17,000 miles per hour and capturing more 680,000 square kilometers of the Earth’s surface daily (19.5 terabytes) the equivalent of the land area of Texas.

With an orbit approximately 400 miles from Earth, the satellite will be launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket provided by Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services.

July 13, 2016
Mapping ‘Hell on Earth’

A mapping feature from GPS World magazine’s June issue.

STILL BURNING: This false-color image shows burned areas in yellow and healthy vegetation in purple. The bright spots are where the fire was actively burning when the image was taken. (Image courtesy of DigitalGlobe, © 2016)
On May 1, a wildfire ignited southwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. At first, wildfire MWF-009 seemed like others residents had experienced — smoke and haze, but no real danger. Two days later, the winds shifted.

The fire swept through Fort McMurray, destroying more than 1,600 homes and buildings and forcing the largest wildfire evacuation in Alberta’s history.

People described it as hell on Earth, comparing the disaster to movies, war, and the apocalypse. By the end of the week, the fire had grown to more than 101,000 hectares, significantly larger than the city of Calgary.

BURN SCAR: On May 4, the Landsat 7 satellite’s Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus acquired this false-color image combining shortwave infrared, near infrared and green light (bands 5-4-2). Near- and short-wave infrared help penetrate clouds and smoke to reveal hot spots of fire (red), smoke (white) and burned areas (brown).

The entire city population of 88,000 evacuated in a rush, many through falling embers from wildfires beside roadways.

On May 5, DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 satellite (WV-3) peered through smoke using shortwave infrared to take the image on the left. GIS analysts can also measure the intensity of the fire using the image.

As of press time, the fires continue to spread across northeast Alberta, impacting Canada’s oil sand operations, and into the neighboring province of Saskatchewan.

The wildfire may become the most costly disaster in Canadian history.

June 2, 2016
Mapping ‘Hell on Earth’

A mapping feature from GPS World magazine’s June issue.

STILL BURNING: This false-color image shows burned areas in yellow and healthy vegetation in purple. The bright spots are where the fire was actively burning when the image was taken. (Image courtesy of DigitalGlobe, © 2016)
On May 1, a wildfire ignited southwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. At first, wildfire MWF-009 seemed like others residents had experienced — smoke and haze, but no real danger. Two days later, the winds shifted.

The fire swept through Fort McMurray, destroying more than 1,600 homes and buildings and forcing the largest wildfire evacuation in Alberta’s history.

People described it as hell on Earth, comparing the disaster to movies, war, and the apocalypse. By the end of the week, the fire had grown to more than 101,000 hectares, significantly larger than the city of Calgary.

BURN SCAR: On May 4, the Landsat 7 satellite’s Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus acquired this false-color image combining shortwave infrared, near infrared and green light (bands 5-4-2). Near- and short-wave infrared help penetrate clouds and smoke to reveal hot spots of fire (red), smoke (white) and burned areas (brown).

The entire city population of 88,000 evacuated in a rush, many through falling embers from wildfires beside roadways.

On May 5, DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 satellite (WV-3) peered through smoke using shortwave infrared to take the image on the left. GIS analysts can also measure the intensity of the fire using the image.

As of press time, the fires continue to spread across northeast Alberta, impacting Canada’s oil sand operations, and into the neighboring province of Saskatchewan.

The wildfire may become the most costly disaster in Canadian history.

June 2, 2016
Sentinel imagery now works inside ArcGIS

Esri has enhanced its ArcGIS technology to simplify the use of free global imagery from the Sentinel-2 satellite launched by the European Space Agency. ArcGIS supports visualization, interpretation, and analysis of Sentinel imagery, which is of significant value in applications for forestry, agriculture, land resources management, and environmental monitoring.

Sentinel-2 color infrared image.

“Scientists and GIS professionals rely on consistent access to high-quality imagery data and information products for a range of applications in their work observing, modeling and predicting Earth systems,” said Lawrie Jordan, Esri’s director of imagery and remote sensing. “Sentinel imagery can also be enhanced by the Landsat imagery already available in ArcGIS Online, which provides additional temporal depth.”

One of the unique capabilities ArcGIS offers is that it can work simultaneously with a wide range of spectral bands and indices at different resolutions. ArcGIS has image processing and analysis tools that allow people to view and analyze all types of imagery.

Institutions, organizations and startup businesses use ArcGIS to manage, analyze and share imagery and applications related to land monitoring, maritime, climate and security issues.

For those working with a large collection of images, Esri released an image management workflow for Sentinel. The workflow ensures that Sentinel scenes can be quickly served as dynamic image services, making the full information content accessible to applications for use on desktop, web, and mobile devices. All processing is applied on the fly, with no intermediate storage required.

“The single-button image management workflow tool is an easy way to share and provide access to a wide range of derived Sentinel-2 imagery products,” said Jordan.

Find specific and technical details on the Esri blog.

May 24, 2016