Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has completed assembly and integration of the WorldView-3 commercial imaging satellite for DigitalGlobe, Boulder, Colo.-based Ball announced Jan. 27.
The satellite, equipped with a multisensor payload, is slated to launch this summer from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., aboard an Atlas 5 rocket.
WorldView-3 is the fourth satellite built by Ball for Longmont, Colo.-based DigitalGlobe, whose biggest single customer is the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The company currently operates five satellites of varying capabilities.
WorldView-3 will be DigitalGlobe’s most capable satellite yet with the ability to collect panchromatic images with 0.31-meter resolution, multispectral data with 1.24-meter resolution and short wave infrared data with 3.7-meter resolution, Ball said. In addition, the satellite carries the Ball-built Cloud, Aerosol, Water Vapor, Ice and Snow (CAVIS) instrument that will make corrections to images collected through haze, soot and other obscurants, Ball said.
The fully integrated WorldView-3 is now ready for full-system testing, to be followed by thermal vacuum and environmental testing, Ball said.
“With each successive payload developed in partnership with Ball, DigitalGlobe has expanded the range of questions about the surface of the earth that can be answered with high-resolution satellite imaging. …WorldView-3 follows in this pioneering tradition with innovations like CAVIS that continue to enable DigitalGlobe to lead the industry and help our customers see things never before possible,” Walter Scott, DigitalGlobe’s executive vice president and chief technical officer, said in a prepared statement.
