[October 16, 2009] DigitalGlobe Launches WorldView-2 Satellite Tweet Oct 16, 2009 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) -- DigitalGlobe announced it has recently launched WorldView-2 satellite to provide detail and geospatial accuracy for imaging and mapping the Earth's surface. Operating at an altitude of 770 kilometers, WorldView-2 features an onboard imaging system with better than 0.5-meter panoramic resolution and 1.8-meter multispectral resolution and is capable of collecting images of up to 975,000 square kilometers per day. Built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies using Ball's BCP-5000 spacecraft bus, the WorldView-2 satellite has an expected mission life of more than seven years. A component of the WorldView-2 satellite is the Command Interface Formatter Module (CTIF) developed by Southwest Research Institute. On WorldView-2, a redundant pair of CTIF modules provides complete uplink and downlink telemetry processing. The CTIF modules represent a continuation of SwRI's long track record of providing spaceflight electronics supporting the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) command and telemetry protocols. In addition to offering spacecraft avionics and computers, SwRI has expertise in spacecraft instruments, theoretical and observational studies, space plasma physics, data analysis and science support, planetary exploration and stellar astronomy. Additionally, SwRI currently serves as the principal investigator institution for the NASA Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) science investigation, and the New Horizons and Juno New Frontiers missions. SwRI is an independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organization based in San Antonio, Texas, with more than 3,300 employees and an annual research volume of more than $563 million. ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]