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RapidEye ready for launch
The 6.5 meter resolution of the RapidEye satellites corresponds to NIIRS-2. Which, coincidentally, is about what the 800 mm lens on the recently-discussed ISS camera gets. See http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs.htm and http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs_c/guide.htm for examples of what you can see with such imagery. ================== http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Rap...aunch_999.html Rapideye Constellation Ready For Launch by Staff Writers Baikonur, Kazakhstan (SPX) Aug 28, 2008 The 5-satellite RapidEye constellation is ready for launch from Baikonur on August 29, 2008. All five satellites have been integrated with the Dnepr launch vehicle at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in readiness for launch at 0715 UTC (0815 BST, 0915 CEST). An MDA/SSTL launch team arrived in Baikonur early July to conduct final tests and integration of the spacecraft with the Dnepr rocket. SSTL in Guildford, UK, designed and built the spacecraft bus, the spacecraft control centre and performed the spacecraft assembly, integration and test. MDA's subcontractor Jena-Optronik GmbH of Jena, Germany, designed and built the imaging payloads. MDA is the prime contractor of the RapidEye mission that is delivered turnkey and in-orbit to RapidEye AG. MDA has direct responsibility for the mission design, the spacecraft design and the ground planning and image processing system. The Canadian Commercial Corporation, a Government of Canada Crown corporation, is acting as the contracting agency between MDA and RapidEye AG. RapidEye is a commercial small satellite mission that will enable global monitoring of the Earth's surface. The constellation is designed to provide insurance and food companies, farmers, government and other agencies and institutions throughout the world with valuable, up-to-date, customised information products and services of the highest quality. The dedicated launch will place the five satellites in a common sun- synchronous orbit of 630 km, with the satellites equally spaced about 19 minutes apart in their orbit, ensuring frequent imaging of particular areas of interests. The RapidEye system will image any area in the world at all latitudes between +/- 75 degrees within one day and cover the entire agricultural areas of North America and Europe within an average of five days. The multi-spectral pushbroom style imager onboard each spacecraft will image the Earth in five spectral bands, scanning a 78 km swath at 6.5m resolution. |
#2
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RapidEye ready for launch
Allen Thomson wrote:
: :The 6.5 meter resolution of the RapidEye satellites corresponds to :NIIRS-2. Which, coincidentally, is about what the 800 mm lens on the :recently-discussed ISS camera gets. See http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs.htm :and http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs_c/guide.htm for examples of :what you can see with such imagery. : Yeah, but insofar as military uses, 6.5 meter imagery is pretty **** poor. Think about it. At that resolution, what can you NOT see? 1) Human beings don't show up. They're simply too small. Much less than one pixel in size. 2) An Abrams tank is around one pixel in size. 3) A football field is only a few dozen pixels. Say about the size of a typical text character in a document. Commercial imagery, on the other hand, will soon be offering 0.5 meter images from GeoEye-1. You can currently buy 100 square miles of 1 meter imagery from the Ikonos bird for less than $1,000. -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
#3
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RapidEye ready for launch
On Aug 28, 8:39*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Commercial imagery, on the other hand, will soon be offering 0.5 meter images from GeoEye-1. * Speaking of which: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080829/...Qner1rXlml UA GeoEye signs deal to provide imagery to Google By Andrea Shalal-Esa Thu Aug 28, 10:04 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - GeoEye Inc on Thursday said it will provide imagery from its new $502 million high-resolution GeoEye-1 satellite to Google Earth and Google Maps after the spacecraft is launched on September 4. GeoEye spokesman Mark Brender said the Google logo was on the first stage of the Delta II rocket that will launch the new satellite, which will provide the highest resolution commercial color imagery available on the market. "Google is interested in collecting the highest quality satellite imagery available and as a symbol of this commitment has agreed to put the company logo on the first stage of our launch vehicle," Brender said. He said Google did not have any direct or indirect financial interest in the satellite or in GeoEye, nor did it pay to have its logo emblazoned on the rocket. If all goes well with the launch, GeoEye's new satellite will be the world's highest resolution commercial earth-imaging satellite, offering images at .41 meters resolution in black and white and 1.65 meters in color. Under current government rules, the company can only offer the public half-meter images. Google spokeswoman Kate Hurowitz said Google would begin receiving half-meter resolution imagery from the new satellite after 45 to 60 days, during which the company will make sure all the satellite's systems are up and running. "The combination of GeoEye's high-resolution, map-accurate satellite imagery from GeoEye-1 and Google's search and display capabilities provides users with access to rich, interactive visual image maps of the Earth," Hurowitz said. She gave no details on the financial terms of the agreement. Google already uses imagery collected by another high-resolution GeoEye satellite, IKONOS, as well as imagery from other sources, including GeoEye's main rival, Digital Globe, which plans an initial public offering this year. DigitalGlobe launched its new high-resolution satellite, WorldView-1, in late 2007, which offers half-meter resolution and can collect up to 750,000 square kilometers (290,000 square miles) of imagery each day, albeit only in black and white. Google will continue to use imagery from other providers, but GeoEye will provide its imagery exclusively to Google, not any other on-line mapping websites, Brender said. GeoEye, which went public in September 2006, has expanded dramatically over the past five years, quadrupling its work force and reporting large revenue and profit increases. Its shares were hammered in recent months on news of a delay in the launch of the new satellite, which was originally planned in April, and given a slump in orders from the Pentagon's National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency. But GeoEye Chief Executive Matthew O'Connell said the launch of GeoEye-1 should help spur U.S. government orders and buoy the company's shares. He predicted strong growth over the next five years, bolstered by growing commercial, global and government demand for satellite imagery. GeoEye's shares closed 2.4 percent higher at $23.18 on Thursday, up sharply from a low of $16.05 in May, but still well below a 52-week high of $37.37 in January. (Editing by Gary Hill) |
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RapidEye ready for launch
On Aug 28, 8:39*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Allen Thomson wrote: : :The 6.5 meter resolution of the RapidEye satellites corresponds to :NIIRS-2. Which, coincidentally, is about what the 800 mm lens on the :recently-discussed ISS camera gets. *Seehttp://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs.htm :andhttp://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs_c/guide.htmfor examples of :what you can see with such imagery. : Yeah, but insofar as military uses, 6.5 meter imagery is pretty **** poor. *Think about it. *At that resolution, what can you NOT see? 1) Human beings don't show up. *They're simply too small. *Much less than one pixel in size. 2) An Abrams tank is around one pixel in size. 3) A football field is only a few dozen pixels. *Say about the size of a typical text character in a document. Commercial imagery, on the other hand, will soon be offering 0.5 meter images from GeoEye-1. *You can currently buy 100 square miles of 1 meter imagery from the Ikonos bird for less than $1,000. But no matter how much you pay GeoEye, you can't get them to give you new pictures of a 100 mile square area every day for a week. There is clearly value to be found at different points in the resolution-coverage-freshness trade space, and RapidEye is filling in a currently unoccupied portion of that space, at what seems like a remarkably low cost. Indeed, the cost is low enough and their birds are small enough that you could almost imagine the United States having a secret program along these lines already. Putting a low-resolution imaging payload on the NOSS birds (or on high-resolution spysats, for that matter) would be easy enough. Flying microsats as secondary payloads wouldn't be much harder. Are the RapidEye birds big enough to be observed by amateurs from the ground? -jake |
#5
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RapidEye ready for launch
Jake McGuire wrote:
Are the RapidEye birds big enough to be observed by amateurs from the ground? Getting scale from this photo isn't a slam dunk, but it makes it appear that they are reasonably large: http://www.rapideye.de/upload/thumbs/jpg/RESat1.jpg rick jones -- Process shall set you free from the need for rational thought. these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH... |
#6
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RapidEye ready for launch
On Aug 29, 11:25 am, Rick Jones wrote:
Jake McGuire wrote: Are the RapidEye birds big enough to be observed by amateurs from the ground? Getting scale from this photo isn't a slam dunk, but it makes it appear that they are reasonably large: http://www.rapideye.de/upload/thumbs/jpg/RESat1.jpg Smaller than a Mercury capsule, I'd say ;-} A cubesat does appear to be a little smaller: http://www.dk3wn.info/sat/afu/sat_xiiv.shtml /dps |
#7
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RapidEye ready for launch
On Aug 29, 11:25*am, Rick Jones wrote:
Jake McGuire wrote: Are the RapidEye birds big enough to be observed by amateurs from the ground? Getting scale from this photo isn't a slam dunk, but it makes it appear that they are reasonably large: http://www.rapideye.de/upload/thumbs/jpg/RESat1.jpg Less than one cubic meter, according to RapidEye. -jake |
#8
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RapidEye ready for launch
Jake McGuire wrote:
On Aug 29, 11:25?am, Rick Jones wrote: Jake McGuire wrote: Are the RapidEye birds big enough to be observed by amateurs from the ground? Getting scale from this photo isn't a slam dunk, but it makes it appear that they are reasonably large: http://www.rapideye.de/upload/thumbs/jpg/RESat1.jpg Less than one cubic meter, according to RapidEye. Where did you find that? I was looking hither and yon on the website for "vital stats" without success. Anyhow, it is indeed small enough that each cannot image its peers in orbit with it I guess rick jones -- The glass is neither half-empty nor half-full. The glass has a leak. The real question is "Can it be patched?" these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH... |
#9
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RapidEye ready for launch
Jake McGuire wrote:
:On Aug 28, 8:39*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote: : Allen Thomson wrote: : : : : :The 6.5 meter resolution of the RapidEye satellites corresponds to : :NIIRS-2. Which, coincidentally, is about what the 800 mm lens on the : :recently-discussed ISS camera gets. *Seehttp://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs.htm : :andhttp://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs_c/guide.htmfor examples of : :what you can see with such imagery. : : : : Yeah, but insofar as military uses, 6.5 meter imagery is pretty **** : poor. *Think about it. *At that resolution, what can you NOT see? : : 1) Human beings don't show up. *They're simply too small. *Much less : than one pixel in size. : : 2) An Abrams tank is around one pixel in size. : : 3) A football field is only a few dozen pixels. *Say about the size of : a typical text character in a document. : : Commercial imagery, on the other hand, will soon be offering 0.5 meter : images from GeoEye-1. *You can currently buy 100 square miles of 1 : meter imagery from the Ikonos bird for less than $1,000. : :But no matter how much you pay GeoEye, you can't get them to give you :new pictures of a 100 mile square area every day for a week. : True, since the revisit time of a single bird is on the order of 72 hours. But what do you need that for? : :There is clearly value to be found at different points in the :resolution-coverage-freshness trade space, and RapidEye is filling in :a currently unoccupied portion of that space, at what seems like a :remarkably low cost. : True, but that value isn't military in nature. : :Indeed, the cost is low enough and their birds are small enough that :you could almost imagine the United States having a secret program :along these lines already. Putting a low-resolution imaging payload n the NOSS birds (or on high-resolution spysats, for that matter) :would be easy enough. Flying microsats as secondary payloads wouldn't :be much harder. : The government doesn't need them, since they have more than one high resolution bird and can get whatever revisit times they need. : :Are the RapidEye birds big enough to be observed by amateurs from the :ground? : That would presumably depend on just what the amateurs were using to look at them with. -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
#10
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RapidEye ready for launch
Rick Jones wrote:
:Jake McGuire wrote: : On Aug 29, 11:25?am, Rick Jones wrote: : Jake McGuire wrote: : Are the RapidEye birds big enough to be observed by amateurs from the : ground? : : Getting scale from this photo isn't a slam dunk, but it makes it : appear that they are reasonably large: : : http://www.rapideye.de/upload/thumbs/jpg/RESat1.jpg : : Less than one cubic meter, according to RapidEye. : :Where did you find that? I was looking hither and yon on the website :for "vital stats" without success. Anyhow, it is indeed small enough :that each cannot image its peers in orbit with it I guess : "Each of the five satellites is about the size of a refrigerator and weighs about 150 kilograms." http://www.dlr.de/en/desktopdefault....86_read-13366/ Of course, that's a bit less than helpful, since it rather depends on how big a typical refrigerator is where you live (if you go by US standards, they'd be about 2 cubic meters). Another source gives them as massing twice what is described above, at 315 kg 'wet mass'. Perhaps this is the difference between 'dry' and 'wet' mass? Ah, found it. In what appears to be a 'marketing' pitch, of all things. See slide 15 of http://wgiss.ceos.org/meetings/wgiss...SS_Oct2007.pdf They measure 1.170 meters by .78 meters by .938 meters and weigh 166.4 kg (although it doesn't say if that includes fuel or not). -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
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