Tim Furniss/LONDON
The race to market high-resolution satellite imagary is on, and the Lockheed Martin-led Space Imaging company, of Thornton, Colorado, aims to win it.
With partners Raytheon E-Systems, Mitsubishi and Eastman Kodak, Lockheed Martin is developing the first two commercial Space Imaging remote-sensing satellites to provide monochrome and multi-spectral digital imagary and geographical information systems (GIS).
Customised, 1m-resolution computer-manipulated images, using merged monochrome and multi-spectral data and information from other sources, will be marketed for use in civil engineering and construction, land management, agriculture, mining, environmental monitoring, tax assessment and other applications.
Today's operational commercial remote-sensing satellites, the Landsat, the Spot, the European and Indian Remote Sensing Satellites, and Russian systems, provide data at a lower resolution, down to 10m (Spot) at the best, but with less accuracy than that of aerial mapping. This is still the dominant source of commercial-monitoring activities and data collection - although it is more labour-intensive and costly.
While current satellites can provide data more quickly and at a lower cost, they often do not offer sufficient, accuracy and resolution, and still represent only a small portion of the total source, for the remote-sensing market. This is why new companies such as Space Imaging believe that there is an unsatisfied market for low-cost, high-resolution, satellite information with the mapping integrity of aerial coverage.
FINE RESOLUTION
Space Imaging's black and white images will achieve a resolution down to 1m, previously the realm of the classified reconnaissance satellite. Lockheed Martin and Kodak were involved in the development of the world's first reconnaisance satellites, originally called Discoverers, but now unclassified and known as the Corona craft, first operated successfully in 1960. This 1m-resolution Space Imaging capability will be merged with the 4m-resolution multi-spectral information content, to create 1m-resolution colour products.
Whether the information is used to manage electrical-power networks, develop optimal transport and utility systems, plan urban growth, locate oil and mineral deposits, survey land assets or promote efficient agricultural production, experts conclude that as much as 80% of that information used by businesses has a geographic, spatial context, which is the basis for the GIS industry and accounts for its robust annual 20% growth. Today's GIS market is worth $3 billion, and, by 2000, this may increase to $5 billion.
EXPANDING THE MARKET
Space Imaging plans to capture the largest share of the existing segments of the market, then use its image collection, processing and distribution capabilities to expand for image-derived products.
Stealing the march on competitors, Space Imaging is already providing users with the equivalent of 1m-resolution satellite images through aerially derived, digitally formatted, products. These run under the name Carterra, which is being marketed and used to develop a customer base and win market recognition in time for the launch of the first satellite. Similar high-resolution 2m-resolution images from former Soviet Union military spy satellites are now being marketed by Russian organisations and their agents and used by some remote-sensing imaging-products suppliers.
The Space Imaging spacecraft are based on the Lockheed Martin LM700, standardised three-axis stabilised, 500kg satellite bus first developed for the Iridium communications system. The craft are about 2m high and have a solar-panel wingspan of 5.6m. The digital-imaging-sensor payload is suppported by high-speed digital processing - a 32-bit onboard processor, wide-band 320 megabits/s datalink, and 64 gigabytes of solid-state memory. The satellite will have seven years operational lifetime.
The Space Imaging 1 will be launched in December 1997 from pad SLC-6 at Vandenberg AFB, California by an LMLV 2, into a 680km, circular Sun-synchronous orbit with an inclination of 98.1°. Travelling at 7km/s, it will provide global coverage and in 10min be able to image a 13km-wide strip stretching, for example, from central Canada to Mexico. The raw-image data will be collected by the sensors and compressed and transmitted to ground stations for processing. Space Imaging's major competitor is EarthWatch, formerly WorldView, a company established in 1992 to develop a high-resolution system, the first to receive government approval to do so. EarthWatch has made plans to launch an EarlyBird satellite in 1997 to provide 3m-resolution images and in 1998 to compete with Space Imaging in the 1m-resolution class, using two QuickBird satellites.
EarthWatch is the result of a merger with another competitive system founded by Ball Aerospace. Its EarlyBird plans have been thwarted by uncertainty over the launcher. It has been booked on a Russian Start 1, then a Cosmos and now, ironically, a Lockheed Martin Launch Vehicle (LMLV 2) launch is being considered.
Other competive systems are being promoted by Orbital Imaging Corporation (OrbView) and Core SoftwareTechnology and Israel Aircraft Industries. The OrbView is a 140kg mini-satellite, scheduled for a launch in 1997, which superseded the original, larger, EyeGlass spacecraft. Saudi Arabia's EIRAD is a major investor.
Source: Flight International
