GeoEye-1 is a high-resolution Earth observation satellite owned by Maxar Technologies (formerly DigitalGlobe), launched in September 2008. The satellite was acquired in the 2013 purchase of GeoEye.

History

On 1 December 2004, General Dynamics C4 Systems announced it had been awarded a contract worth approximately US$209 million to build the OrbView-5 satellite. Its sensor is designed by the ITT Exelis. The satellite, now known as GeoEye-1, was originally scheduled for launch in April 2008 but lost its 30-day launch slot to a U.S. government mission which had itself been delayed. It was rescheduled for launch 22 August 2008 from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Delta II launch vehicle. The launch was postponed to 4 September 2008, due to unavailability of the Big Crow telemetry-relay aircraft. It was delayed again to 6 September because Hurricane Hanna interfered with its launch crews. The launch took place successfully on 6 September 2008 at 18:50:57 UTC. The GeoEye-1 satellite separated successfully from its Delta II launch vehicle at 19:49 UTC, 58 minutes and 56 seconds after launch.

Specifications and operation

GeoEye-1 provides 0.41 m panchromatic and 1.65 m multispectral imagery at nadir in 15.2 km swaths. The spacecraft is in a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 681 km and an inclination of 98 degrees, with a 10:30 a.m. equator crossing time. GeoEye-1 can image up to 60 degrees off nadir. It is operated out of Dulles, Virginia. At the time of its launch, GeoEye-1 was the world's highest resolution commercial Earth-imaging satellite. GeoEye-1 was manufactured in Gilbert, Arizona, by General Dynamics and the first image was returned on 7 October of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. Google, which had its logo on the side of the rocket, has exclusive online mapping use of its data. While GeoEye-1 is capable of imagery with details the size of 41 cm, that resolution was only available to the U.S. government. Google has access to details of 50 cm. Prior maximum commercial imagery was 60 cm. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and Google paid a combined US$502 million for the satellite and upgrades to GeoEye's four ground stations.

2009 anomaly

In December 2009 GeoEye announced it had suspended imagery collections by GeoEye-1 for a few days, citing an irregularity in the downlink antenna. "The irregularity appears to limit the range of movement of GeoEye-1 downlink antenna, which may in turn affect GeoEye-1 ability to image and downlink simultaneously," GeoEye said at a press conference. However, the satellite continued with normal operations shortly thereafter, though with diminished simultaneous imaging-and-downlink capability for non-U.S. clients.