New satellite to sharpen Google Earth

Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:58pm ET144

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - DigitalGlobe, provider of imagery for Google Inc's interactive mapping program Google Earth, said a new high-resolution satellite will boost the accuracy of its satellite images and flesh out its archive.

The new spacecraft, dubbed WorldView I, is to be launched on Tuesday.

Together with the company's existing Quickbird satellite, it will offer half-meter resolution and will be able to collect over 600,000 square kilometers of imagery each day, up from the current collection of that amount each week, Chief Executive Jill Smith told Reuters in a telephone interview.

She said Tuesday's launch -- to be broadcast live on the Internet at http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/...ns/worldview-1/ -- and the planned launch of a second Worldview II satellite in late 2008, were critical milestones for the company.

Privately held DigitalGlobe is still working toward an initial public offering in the next few years, Smith said. She declined to say whether that could come before the launch of the second WorldView satellite.

"The business is as strong as we had hoped," Smith said, adding, "The key is to continue to hit the milestones that we've set."

Once its third satellite is launched, DigitalGlobe said it will be collecting more than 1 million square kilometers per day of high-resolution imagery.

mith said WorldView I should allow far faster collection of imagery and add more quickly to the company's archive, which is already the world's largest commercial archive of satellite images. The library contains more than 300 million square kilometers of satellite and aerial imagery.

MORE ACCURATE DATA

The new satellite will also provide far more accurate data, including the ability to pinpoint objects on the Earth at three to 7.5 meters, or 10 to 25 feet. Using known reference points on the ground, the accuracy would rise to about two meters, Smith said.

DigitalGlobe built the satellite in part with $500 million in funding from the Pentagon's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), but it can sell the images commercially as long as their resolution is no sharper than a half-meter.

Its publicly traded rival, GeoEye Inc, is due to launch its next-generation high-resolution satellite this year but has pushed the launch back until the spring of 2008, said spokesman Mark Brender.

DigitalGlobe continues to expand sales and partnerships rapidly, Smith said, noting that one of her goals is to expand the ability to deliver images online to an increasingly broad customer base.

Smith said the U.S. military increasingly views commercial satellite imagery as a "core part of the military infrastructure," although there will always be a critical role for purely military satellite systems.

Smith said DigitalGlobe invested heavily in testing to make sure that Tuesday's launch of WorldView is successful.

A failure would be a setback, she said, but would not have a material effect on the company, given that its current satellite, QuickBird, was expected to last for at least two to three years and it already has begun work on WorldView II.

"The fortunate fact, which distinguishes us from other players, is that we have a very healthy high-growth core business," and WorldView II is already under way, Smith said.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....nl_ustechnology

LaoPo

You mean there might be hope that the Thailand images which are already a couple years out of date, might be updated within our lifetime?

Only a few years out of date, you say? I downloaded the program last night, and my part of our moobahn has less than half the homes that are there now. I can't believe some of those newer homes are just a few years old.

I do believe that isn't because of the acuracy of the data from Google but about a policy of the Thai Government!

If you just take a look at Suvarnabhumi Airport you'll find out that the Airport exist but that the data are "scrambled" which means very unsharp and for sure NOT correct!

By the way, if you try to get uptodate Aeronautical Charts from the DOA (Department of Aviation) youll get so named Tactical Pilote Age from 1989!

And if you try the latest GPS moving maps from Geppesen which are the accurate one, those maps more than 2 year old!

And there alot more examples about correct mapping data from Thailand!

Sometimes it is the outdateing of the pictures.  Its been two years now, but I went to my old house near Seattle and my truck was still parked out front and the side gate was missing that put the picture five years out of date at that time.

You mean there might be hope that the Thailand images which are already a couple years out of date, might be updated within our lifetime?

Not only here.... The car I sold over 4 years ago is still parked in the driveway of my house in Oxford, UK.... Or maybe my Polish tenants have bought my old car and brought it home ????

I can actually see my house now rather than the indistinct blur it was 6 months ago.

Google Earth has updated PARTS of Pattaya. My house off Third Road now shows the new estate built behind our estate , whereas the other side of Maprachan is still the bad cloud covered image which does not stream into a clear image.

My condo in Pratumnak now has a three dimensional view rather than completely overhead. Some of the recent View Talays are intact; and the VT7 construction site is there (but not more than 14 metres high...). Must be a recent capture.

The west side of Phuket has now been updated so the whole island can be seen in closeup.

I do believe that isn't because of the acuracy of the data from Google but about a policy of the Thai Government!

If you just take a look at Suvarnabhumi Airport you'll find out that the Airport exist but that the data are "scrambled" which means very unsharp and for sure NOT correct!

By the way, if you try to get uptodate Aeronautical Charts from the DOA (Department of Aviation) youll get so named Tactical Pilote Age from 1989!

And if you try the latest GPS moving maps from Geppesen which are the accurate one, those maps more than 2 year old!

And there alot more examples about correct mapping data from Thailand!

Well i can see my dad's old nissan parked on his drive which he sold 4 years ago in S.Yorks England,