Risat-1 catapults India into a select group of nations

by Venkatachari Jagannathan Siharikota, India(IANS) Apr 27, 2012

RISAT-1 undergoing prelaunch tests in the clean room at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. Photo Courtesy : ISRO. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hails Risat-1 launchNew Delhi (IANS) Apr 27 - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday congratulated scientists of India's space agency ISRO for the successful launch of the PSLV-C19 rocket that has put into orbit the Radar Imaging Satellite (Risat-1). "I would like to warmly congratulate all scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation for the successful launch on Thursday of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV)-C19 carrying the Radar Imaging Satellite-1 (Risat-1), the heaviest satellite launched till date using PSLV," Manmohan Singh said in his message soon after the successful launch. He said the 20th consecutive successful launch of the PSLV 'is an important milestone' in India's space programme and 'is testimony' to ISRO's mastery of the complex launch vehicle technology. "I have no doubt that Risat-1's all weather, day-night imaging ability will significantly contribute to the nation's remote sensing capabilities. The country is proud of ISRO's achievements and I wish the organisation all success in its future endeavours," he added. The Risat-1 was launched into orbit from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh, some 80 km from Chennai. With the launch of Risat-1, India has now joined a select group of nations having such a technology.

On an early on Thursday morning, an Indian rocket successfully launched into orbit a microwave Radar Imaging Satellite (Risat-1) from the spaceport here in Andhra Pradesh, some 80 km from Chennai. With the launch of Risat-1, India has now joined a select group of nations having such a technology.
The indigenously built Risat-1, with a life span of five years, will be used for disaster prediction and agriculture forestry. The high resolution pictures and microwave imaging from Risat-1 could also be used for defence purposes as it can look through the clouds and fog.
At 5.47 a.m., the rocket - Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C19 (PSLV-C19) - standing 44.5 metres tall and weighing 321 tonnes and with a one-way ticket, hurtled towards the skies ferrying the 1,858 kg Risat-1 after unshackling itself from launch pad No.1.
With a rich orange flame at its tail and a plume of white smoke, the rocket ascended towards the blue sky amidst the resounding cheers of ISRO scientists and media team assembled at the launch centre.
People perched atop nearby buildings too happily clapped as PSLV-C19 went up.
Space scientists at the new rocket mission control room of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) were glued to their computer screens watching the rocket escaping the earth's gravitational pull.
The ISRO-made Risat-1 is the heaviest luggage so far ferried by a PSLV since 1993.

DigitalGlobe Adding Infrared Capability to WorldView-3 Satellite

Tue, 17 April, 2012

---

By Warren Ferster

 

Walter Scott. Credit: Space News photo by Sheila Vemmer Enlarge Image

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Imaging satellite operator DigitalGlobe is adding a shortwave infrared sensing capability to its planned WorldView-3 satellite that will open up a host of new civil and military applications, the company said April 17.

The new capability will enable customers to pick up details that often do not show up in conventional visible imagery, Longmont, Colo.-based DigitalGlobe said in an announcement here at the 28th National Space Symposium.

“Shortwave infrared is really good at detecting differences between materials,” said Walter Scott, DigitalGlobe founder and chief technical officer. In an interview here, he reeled off a variety of civilian and commercial applications for the data, including mineral exploration, vegetation moisture monitoring and water-resource management.

Scott declined to discuss the military and intelligence applications of shortwave infrared. But he said civil and national security applications weighed equally in the company’s decision to invest in the sensor.

DigitalGlobe’s primary costumer is the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which buys commercial satellite imagery on behalf of national security customers. The NGA in 2010 awarded DigitalGlobe and competitor GeoEye 10-year imagery contracts with a combined value of over $7 billion that require the companies to invest in new satellites and infrastructure.

Scott declined to disclose the cost of the eight-band infrared sensing capability, but said it would not appreciably affect the $650 million cost of the Worldview-3 program. That total includes the satellite, its 2014 launch aboard an Atlas 5 rocket and other costs, he said.

DigitalGlobe is on the hook for the entire cost of the Atlas 5, built by Denver-based United Launch Alliance, even though the satellite requires only a fraction of the rocket’s full payload-carrying capacity. Scott said DigitalGlobe is looking for a secondary payload whose owner would help defray the launch costs, but has made no firm decision to pursue that strategy.

WorldView-3 is being built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo. ITT Exelis Geospatial Systems of Rochester, N.Y., is supplying the main sensor, which will be capable of taking black-and-white pictures with 0.3-meter resolution — meaning objects of that size and larger can be detected — from an orbital altitude of just under 620 kilometers, Scott said.

The satellite will be capable of taking multispectral imagery at 1.2-meter resolution and shortwave infrared data at 3.7-meter resolution, Scott said.

DigitalGlobe directed Exelis to add the infrared capability to the WorldView-3 imaging camera about a year ago, Scott said.

Chris Young, president of Exelis Geospatial Systems, said the infrared capability is an additional sensor module that will be placed in the satellite’s main imaging camera.

DigitalGlobe currently has three healthy imaging satellites on orbit: QuickBird, launched in 2001; WorldView-1, launched in 2007; and WorldView-2, launched in 2009. Each satellite is more capable than its predecessor, and together they collect about 1 billion square kilometers of imagery per year, or six times the land surface area of the Earth, Scott said.

Scott said the constellation provides revisit frequencies of two times per day, and in some cases three or even four times per day. The WorldView-1 and WorldView-2 satellites have control moment gyros that provide a high degree of agility that increases flexibility and imaging frequency, Scott said. 

source: http://spacenews.com

Europe loses sight of Earth

Envisat crisis rekindles row over funding for its successors.

• Geoff Brumfiel

24 April 2012

Envisat’s MERIS instrument could monitor toxic algal blooms, such as these swirling in the Barents Sea. 

ESA

With hopes fading fast for the crippled Earth-observing satellite Envisat, researchers are warning that delays to its replacements will leave Europe lacking vital monitoring data for years to come.
Launched in 2002, Envisat is the largest environmental satellite ever built and the mainstay of the Earth-observing programme for the European Space Agency (ESA). The 8.2-tonne satellite has 10 instruments with which to take the planet’s pulse, including radars, infrared and optical imagers, and spectrometers.
Controllers at ESA unexpectedly lost contact with the €2.3-billion (US$3-billion) behemoth on 8 April. Failure of either the satellite’s main computer or its power system is thought to be to blame, according to Manfred Warhaut, head of ESA’s mission operations department in Darmstadt, Germany. “It’s not looking promising,” he says.

Industrial Intelligence

Πηγή: DTI, Feb 2012

DigitalGlobe Unveils New Details of WorldView-3 Satellite

Colorado Springs, CO (SPX) Apr 24, 2012

WorldView-3 will extend the already industry-leading capabilities of DigitalGlobe's commercial imaging constellation, which today is comprised of QuickBird, WorldView-1 and WorldView-2.

DigitalGlobe has unveiled unique capabilities of its WorldView-3 satellite, slated for launch in mid-2014. The announcement was made at the 28th Annual National Space Symposium, the premier gathering of the global space community taking place now in Colorado Springs.
WorldView-3 will extend the already industry-leading capabilities of DigitalGlobe's commercial imaging constellation, which today is comprised of QuickBird, WorldView-1 and WorldView-2. This constellation captures well over 75 percent of all half-meter resolution commercial imagery worldwide, including the most color imagery, with an average of twice-daily revisit to any point on the ground globally.
In addition to offering 0.31 meter resolution panchromatic and eight-band multispectral imagery, WorldView-3 was recently licensed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to collect eight-band short-wave infrared (SWIR) imagery.

ITT Exelis delivers imaging system for next-generation, high-resolution GeoEye-2 satellite

Rochester NY (SPX) Apr 11, 2012

illustration only

ITT Exelis Geospatial Systems has delivered GeoEye's next-generation commercial imaging system for the GeoEye-2 satellite to Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Sunnyvale, Calif. When operational in 2013, GeoEye-2 will deliver the highest resolution and most accurate color imagery to GeoEye's commercial, government and international customers.
The Exelis-built imaging payload for GeoEye-2 includes a telescope, sensor subsystem and outer barrel assembly and has the potential to capture panchromatic ground sample distance imagery of the Earth's surface at 0.34-meter, or 13.38-inch, ground resolution.