Tim Furniss/LONDON
EarthWatch has suffered its second satellite loss in three years, with its 950kg (2,100lb) commercial remote sensing satellite Quick Bird 1 failing to respond to signals sent from ground control after its launch on 21 November.
The satellite - launched on a Russian Cosmos 3M booster from Plesetsk - was reported by US Space Command to be in a 78km (48 mile) perigee, 610km orbit compared with the planned 590km circular orbit. Cosmos appears to have suffered a second stage failure.
EarthWatch's Early Bird satellite was lost in December 1997, two days after launch.
EarthWatch has been developing Quick Bird for several years. It was designed to return 1m resolution panchromatic and 4m resolution digital colour images of Earth; and was built by Ball Aerospace, Kodak and Fokker Space.
A planned second satellite for launch next year was intended to enable Quick Bird to become the largest commercial collector of Earth imagery by mid-2001. The system would compete with Space Imaging's Ikonos and Orbital Sciences' OrbView satellites. EarthWatch was formed in 1995 through the merger of WorldView Imaging and Ball Aerospace.
Ikonos and OrbView imagery has proved more successful than lower resolution systems such as the US Landsat and France's commercial Spot system. High resolution images provide good geometric capabilities, allowing development of a range of digital mapping products. Analysts are unconvinced, however, that the market is large enough to accommodate many high resolution satellite operators.
Source: Flight International
