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.

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

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)

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

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...

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

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

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...

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

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