IKONOS
| IKONOS | |
|---|---|
| Type: | Earth observation satellite |
| Country: |
 United States
|
| Operator: | Space imaging |
| COSPAR-ID : | 1999-051A |
| Mission dates | |
| Dimensions: | 726 kg |
| Size: | 1.8 × 1.8 × 1.6 m |
| Begin: | September 24, 1999, 18:22 UTC |
| Starting place: | Vandenberg AFB , SLC-6 |
| Launcher: | Athena 2 LM-007 |
| Orbit data | |
| Rotation time : | 98.3 min |
| Orbit inclination : | 98.1 ° |
| Apogee height : | 678 km |
| Perigee height : | 682 km |
IKONOS was a commercial earth observation satellite that was last operated by DigitalGlobe . The mission began on September 24, 1999 and ended on March 31, 2015.
Orbit
The satellite circled the earth at an altitude of approx. 680 km 14 times a day with an orbit inclination of 98.1 °. It was thus in a sun-synchronous orbit and flies over the equator at 10:30 a.m. local solar time on each orbit.
Image acquisition
The high-resolution cameras recorded both grayscale images and multispectral images (color images) with four channels: blue, green, red and infrared. The accuracy was up to 82 cm for the grayscale images and up to 3.28 meters for the multispectral images.
| channel | Grayscale | Multispectral |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (blue) | 0.45-0.90 µm | 0.445-0.516 µm |
| 2 (green) | * | 0.506-0.595 µm |
| 3 (red) | * | 0.632-0.698 µm |
| 4 ( near infrared ) | * | 0.757-0.853 µm |
Each image represented an area of at least 11 km × 11 km with a resolution of up to 82 cm. Strips 11 km wide and many hundreds of km long could also be recorded. A special feature of the Ikonos satellite was its high agility, which also made it possible to record several shorter, 11 km wide image strips next to one another, so that areas of e.g. B. 60 km × 60 km could be recorded in one overflight.
The internal storage capacity of the satellite was 64 GB. In order to speed up the data transfer to the ground stations, the 11-bit data was compressed and then transferred at 320 Mbps.
history
The IKONOS satellite was built by Lockheed Martin , originally under the name Commercial Remote Sensing System (CRSS) . The communication systems, the image processing and the controls were contributed by Raytheon , the digital camera by Eastman Kodak . The partner company Space Imaging changed the name of the satellite to IKONOS before the launch, based on the Greek word eikōn , which means "image" (see icon ).
IKONOS-1 started on April 27, 1999, but was lost at the start. The structurally identical IKONOS-2 satellite was originally scheduled to launch in 2000. Following the failure of IKONOS-1, IKONOS-2 was renamed IKONOS and was finally successfully launched into orbit on September 24, 1999 . The launch took place in each case with an Athena-2 rocket from launch complex 6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California .
The operator was initially Space Imaging. In 2002 the subsidiary European Space Imaging , based in Munich, took over the distribution of the images for Europe, with the participation of Space Imaging Middle East LLC in Dubai. From 2006 the operator was GeoEye and from 2013 DigitalGlobe .
Web links
- IKONOS European Space Imaging (English)
- The life and death of Ikonos, a pioneering commercial satellite mashable.com, May 28, 2015
- Civilian detail reconnaissance bernd-leitenberger.de