, BOULDER, Colo: Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has been selected by DigitalGlobe, provider of the world's highest resolution commercial satellite imagery and geospatial information products, to build WorldView 2, its third satellite in a constellation of spacecraft that offer the highest-resolution imagery of Earth. WorldView 2 is the fourth remote-sensing satellite built by Ball Aerospace for Digital Globe.
“The WorldView 2 spacecraft bus is the eighth contracted program in our Ball Commercial Platform (BCP) satellite product line,” said Ball Aerospace President and CEO, David L. Taylor. “The BCP product line continues to mature in reliability, capability and state-of-the-art technology. The WorldView 2 contract builds upon our heritage of more than 16 years of successful on-orbit mission performance.”
Ball Aerospace will provide the BCP 5000 for WorldView 2, anticipated to launch in 2008. The spacecraft bus offers increased resolution and target selection flexibility, and accommodates future optical, scientific and Synthetic Aperture Radar remote-sensing payloads. The BCP 5000's power, stability, agility, and data storage and transmission capability, together meet the requirements to deliver comprehensive Earth remote-sensing information.
Ball Aerospace is completing integration of the sensor for WorldView 1, scheduled to be on-orbit in mid-2007. Once launched, WorldView 1 will supply half-meter resolution commercial imagery content to DigitalGlobe customers worldwide, and will provide still-higher resolution imaging capability than the Ball Aerospace-built QuickBird satellite. The advanced Control Moment Gyroscopes (CMGs) provided by Ball for WorldView 1 and WorldView 2, afford the satellites the flexibility and agility to capture more imagery than ever before. The addition of WorldView 2 provides the capability of 8-band multispectral pictures at resolutions as sharp as 1.8 meters and panchromatic at half-meter.
DigitalGlobe is a leader in the commercial marketplace providing unprecedented imagery with the highest resolution, largest footprint and highest accuracy of any other commercially available satellite imagery in the world.
“Since our first successful teaming with the QuickBird launch in October 2001, DigitalGlobe and Ball Aerospace have been making history in meeting the increased demand for Earth imaging collection,” said Jill Smith, DigitalGlobe president and CEO. “The WorldView satellites will further enhance our contributions to the geospatial information market.”
Ball Aerospace celebrated its 50th year in business in 2006. The company began building pointing controls for military rockets in 1956, and later won a contract to build one of NASA's first spacecraft, the Orbiting Solar Observatory. Over the years, the company has been responsible for numerous technological and scientific 'firsts' and now acts as a technology innovator for important national missions.
Ball Corporation is a supplier of high-quality metal and plastic packaging products and owns Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. Ball reported 2005 sales of $5.8 billion and employs 15,600 people.
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