WorldView-2 satellite imagery

WorldView-2 was launched on October  9, 2007 . The owner is DigitalGlobe (USA). WorldView-2 and WorldView-1 were engineered simultaneously. Bell Aerospace (platform, integration), Eastman Kodak (optical camera) and BAE Systems (processing system) are involved into development process. WorldView-2 is going to be placed at 770 km altitude of near-earth sun-synchronous orbit at which the satellite will be able to revisit a particular site each 1-2 days depending on latitude. WorldView-2 will offer surface imagery with spatial resolution of 50 cm in panchromatic mode and of 1.8 m in polyzonal mode at nadir. Estimated lifetime in orbit – 7 years.

WorldView-2 applications

• Creation and refreshing of topographical maps and special plans up to 1:2000 scale.
• DEM creation up to 1-3 meters scale.
• Assessing and survey of drill site and transportation infrastructure facilities.
• Forest regulation implementation, accurate automatic forest inventory and estimating.
• Agriculture inventory, creation of land use maps and precision farming.
• Instant monitoring of the erosion, karsts, bogging, desertisation, salification, forest and grass fires, water and other flooding extension.
• Workflow mapping of vegetation, landscapes and land use.
• Topographical background survey for the generation of the perspective urban developing layouts and metropolitan region planning diagrams.
• Inventory and monitoring transport, energy and information communications condition.
• Extensively used in environmental protection scope.