Imaging Firms Shift Focus to the Ground Segment

摘要

The next-generation spacecraft planned by two U.S. commercial satellite imagery companies will increase massively the amount of data the companies gather. As a result, making sure the new systems for downloading and distributing their data are ready to handle the increase could be a larger challenge than building the satellites themselves, industry officials said. DigitalGlobe, based in Longmont, Colo., won a $500 million contract in September 2003 under the National Geospatial-Intelli-gence Agency's NextView program. That contract will help finance the company's second-generation satellite. The company's WorldView satellite, being built by Ball Aerospace of Boulder, Colo., is scheduled to be operational in early 2006. Orbimage Inc. of Dulles, Va., won a similar contract in September, and its OrbView-5 spacecraft will be launched about a year after the WorldView spacecraft is in orbit.