EARLYBIRD Satellite
On December 24, 1997, DigitalGlobe launched into low Earth orbit the first-ever commercial satellite system licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to gather 3 meter remote sensing image data.
Called EarlyBird 1, the satellite carried a focal plane array specially designed and built by ITT to capture 3m resolution panchromatic (gray-scale) and 15m multi-spectral images (green, red, near-infrared) of the Earth. Such images have use in a variety of commercial applications, such as city planning, agricultural assessment, and the management of land, infrastructure and natural resources.
Four days after launch, on December 28, 1997, DigitalGlobe engineers lost two-way communications with EarlyBird 1.
QUICKBIRD Satellite
The next generation DigitalGlobe imaging system was the QuickBird Satellite System. Launched on October 18th 2001, QuickBird is one of the first commercial remote sensing satellites capable of gathering sub-meter resolution data over a very wide swath.
The QuickBird satellite incorporates an ITT-designed and built sensor subsystem, consisting of the focal plane array, image compression and electronics. The subsystem captures 0.61-meter-resolution panchromatic imagery, and 2.4-meter multi-spectral imagery. It produces 11 x 11-km snapshots to 11 x 225-km strip maps. In addition to green, red and near-infrared wavelengths, the multi-spectral image sensor can also process a blue channel, enabling true color imaging from space.
ITT's participation on the QuickBird satellite program is another example of our ability to produce state-of-the-art imaging systems.
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