Lift-Off for NextView
LAUNCHES EXPECTED THIS YEAR FOR SATELLITES THAT WILL VASTLY IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF GEOSPATIAL IMAGERY.
Military and commercial consumers of satellite imagery are on the cusp of receiving a new generation of high-resolution commercial imagery and imagery-derived products and services. After overcoming a confluence of problems that have delayed planned launches, two major satellite companies are completing plans this year to launch satellites that will vastly improve the quality of geospatial imagery and services available to analysts.
The satellites, GeoEye-1 from GeoEye and WorldView-I from DigitalGlobe will be sent into orbit under a National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency (NGA) program called NextView.
In NextView’s vendor agreements, a key requirement was to provide imagery in the 0.5 meter (50 centimeters (cm), or about 19 inches) domain. This compares to about 60 cm and greater resolution that is available today, and meets a large percentage of NGA’s current production needs.
“The Nextview systems will be a quantum leap in capability,” pointed out Frank Koester, vice president, commercial and space science programs, ITT Space Systems, which furnished components for both satellites. “Most of the community that follows these developments has no real idea how good these products are going to be. I liken it to the difference between regular TV and High Definition TV.”
A variety of issues led to the postponement of earlier planned launches, according to those closely following the programs.
The GeoEye-1 and WorldView-I “programs have encountered delays in their development and integration of the sensor subsystems primarily due to industrywide parts availability and reliability problems,” observed Marshall Hudson, an NGA spokesman. “The three-month Boeing labor strike last year and the earlier grounding of the Delta II fleet for safety issues have also contributed to the delays as launches backed up in the queue.”
With these material and equipment readiness issues resolved, the projected 2007 launch dates for both satellites remain dependent on the Boeing launch manifest. But spokesmen for GeoEye and DigitalGlobe are confident that both satellites will soon be sent aloft.
TESTING REGIMENS
The sensor or camera, optical telescope assembly, detectors and focal plane assembly, and high-speed digital processing electronics for GeoEye-1 were built by ITT. That company delivered the sensor to GeoEye’s prime contractor General Dynamics’ Advanced Information Systems Division early this year.
The camera has since been mounted into the satellite at the division’s “factory of the future” facility in Gilbert, Ariz. As summer began, all components had been mounted on the satellite with the exception of the solar array panels, propulsion panels and thermal blankets. All of these components will be added before shipping the satellite to Vandenberg, Air Force Base, Calif.
During the time until launch, the satellite will continue to go through integration and testing regimens at the site.
“Basically we have a complete spacecraft on which our prime contractor can conduct all of the required testing and integration requirements prior to launch,” said Mark Brender, GeoEye vice president, marketing and corporate communications.
All of the components or subsystems that make up GeoEye-1 have been individually tested. The testing that will take place during the summer will check out the fully integrated spacecraft to ensure all elements work together properly. Then GeoEye goes through a series of environmental tests. These tests validate system performance and ensure compatibility of the integrated spacecraft with itself and the environments that it will see through launch and throughout space operations.
“All of these testing efforts have not been without challenges, as can be expected in a program of this complexity,” said Brender. “As issues arise, they are being addressed. There have been no issues that impact the ultimate performance or quality of the spacecraft.”
While an official launch date for GeoEye- 1 had not been established as this issue went to press, a launch is expected during October through December of this year.
If fall 2007 is the actual launch window, then GeoEye-1 is expected to be operational and able to provide commercial imagery by early 2008.
“There is a 45-to-60 day engineering check-out period,” pointed out Brender. “That’s when we validate the imagery and test all the systems in a space environment. This is a crucial time in the early stages of the satellite’s life. We will sell imagery only once the entire spacecraft has been checked out.”
During the post-launch, engineering and check-out phase, NGA will receive any advanced look at the GeoEye’s products, under the terms of the NextView program. Through this program, the agency is paying for one-half of the developmental costs.
The investment will provide higher quality products to government-industry consumers.
GeoEye-1’s capabilities are a quantum leap ahead of the company’s IKONOS legacy satellite, which is still operational and collecting quality imagery. As of summer 2007, IKONOS has imaged more than 280 million square kilometers of the Earth’s surface at one-meter ground resolution.
The new satellite will have 41 cm ground resolution, a larger collection capacity and a geo-location accuracy “that will make GeoEye-1 the highest performing commercial imaging satellite in the world,” asserted Brender.
Despite these technical advancements, current U.S. regulations will prohibit GeoEye from distributing the satellite’s imagery of less than 50 cm resolution to customers outside the governments of the U.S. and designated allies.
GeoEye-1’s capacity is 700,000 sq km/day (270,271 square miles) in the panchromatic or black-and-white mode, and 350,000 sq km/day in the multi-spectral mode. Most importantly, the satellite will be able to locate an object as small as 50 cm in size to within a few kilometers of its true location on the surface of the globe.
Industry analysts say they expect the U.S. government to relax the “24 hour” hold rule for imagery at half-meter ground resolution. This is a sign that the government is getting more and more comfortable with allowing such superior technology to go outside the confines of the intelligence community.
SGI has delivered eight Altix 350 systems and supporting equipment to process the billions of bytes of GeoEye’s high-resolution imagery that will be produced daily. The Altix systems have 64-bit processing power, which will enable the GeoEye ground team to model the sensor, resample data, process the data and complete other complex, power-intensive tasks. A 32-bit processing power rating was not adequate for GeoEye-1’s image data capacity.
“When you get down to the finer and finer resolution, you create a larger and larger data stream that has to be processed,” said Lee Schubert, director of business development for SGI’s Defense and Strategic Systems Division.
The progress with GeoEye-1’s equipment and systems is also evident for the WorldView-I program, as well as with the satellite companies’ key contractors.
Orbit Logic, a member of the GeoEye-1 and WorldView-I consortia, is providing advanced mission planning and scheduling software for both satellites.
In February, the company delivered its Collection Planning Component software to DigitalGlobe for QuickView and WorldView.
In March, Orbit Logic received a new task order under an existing contract with GeoEye to develop and deliver a new version of the Collection Planning System for use by GeoEye fixed and mobile ground station partners, and upgrades to the GeoEye-1 headquarters software to support the partner ground stations.
INCREASED AGILITY
A final round of tests on DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-I satellite is being completed by Ball Aerospace, and an announcement from that company about the completion of testing was expected at press time. ITT built the sensor.
The industry team is providing a number of leap-ahead capabilities for WorldView-I.
The satellite will meet customer demands for increased resolution by moving to a 50 cm resolution (panchromatic) rating from the 60 cm resolution standard onboard the legacy QuickBird satellite.
“Although our customers will benefit from a nearly 18 percent improvement in resolution, this is not as drastic of a change in resolution as there has been previously between 1 meter imagery and our current 60 cm resolution imagery,” said Chuck Herring, director of media relations for DigitalGlobe. “The biggest change that we’re going to see from QuickBird to WorldView-I is the collection capacity—its ability to collect imagery—due to increased onboard storage, greater communications downlinks and the biggest differentiator, its agility.”
WorldView-I’s agility, or the speed at which it can point at targets as it flies over regions, will be about 10 times faster than QuickBird.
“With QuickBird, there are many times that we are limited because there are many point targets we have to pick between. We will be able to shoot substantially more targets on the ground because WorldView will be 10 times more agile. That will help us collect about four times the amount of imagery that we are collecting with QuickBird,” added Herring.
The introduction of a technology used in the International Space Station and other large spacecraft supports the satellite’s increased agility.
“We have, for the first time in a commercial imaging satellite, equipped WorldView-I with control moment gyros. This is the technology behind our agility— why we can point so quickly,” said Steve Wood, DigitalGlobe vice president of U.S. defense sales and business operations.
While QuickBird can collect up to 250,000 sq km of imagery per day, WorldView-I will be able to collect up to 750,000 sq km per day.
“Keep in mind, both of these platforms will be flying concurrently, so the total amount of imagery you will be bringing down every day will be dramatically higher—up to about 1 million sq km per day,” said Wood.
WorldView-I’s mapping accuracy will also be dramatically improved over its legacy system. It should be available to the NGA commercial customer base by the end of this year.
“Our range for a launch is between August and September of this year. At this point there are no delays,” Herring said.
With both satellite programs now moving ahead without incident, launch dates are expected to be determined by the schedule of the Boeing launch program.
The WorldView-I, through the United Launch Alliance, and GeoEye-1 will be lifted into orbit by Boeing Delta-II launch vehicles from Vandenberg AFB.
“It’s our understanding from Boeing that the rocket is on schedule and there is no delay with the development, fabrication and manufacture of the specific rocket which will lift GeoEye into a standard 423- mile orbit,” said Brender.
“The next major issue that Boeing is dealing with is the high number of Delta-II launches this summer. They just finished a launch for the Italians, and I believe they have three more at the Cape Kennedy Space Center before we go. And then there is a lot of other activity at Vandenberg AFB,” pointed out Herring.
These satellites will provide a new generation of products that will be of increased interest to interagency and other organizations. ♦
