Ikonos satellite imagery

Ikonos was launched on September 24, 1999 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The owner of the satellite till the beginning of 2006 was Space Imaging (USA). In February 2006 OrbImage announced merging with Space Imaging. The united company was called GeoEye. Ikonos was set into low sun-synchronous orbit at the height of 680 km at which the satellite can revisit any area each 1-5 days depending on latitude. Ikonos provides digital satellite imagery with spatial resolution of 1 m in panchromatic mode and 4 m in multispectral mode. The main advantage of Ikonos is high mobility enabling surveying of large areas from single pass (up to 5000 square kilometers), as well as acquiring stereopairs from single orbit circuit. Perspective life time is about 7 years.

Ikonos satellite imagery applications

• Creation and refreshing of topographical maps and special plans up to 1:5000 scale.
• DEM creation up to 1-3 meters scale.
• Assessing and estimating of drill site and transportation infrastructure facilities.
• Realization of forest inventory and organization.
• Agriculture inventory, creation of land use maps and precision farming.
• 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.
• Broad spectrum of environment conservation projects.