On 1 December 2004, General Dynamics C4 Systems announced it had been awarded a contract worth approximately US$209 million to build the OrbView-5 satellite.[8] Its sensor is designed by the ITT Exelis.
The satellite, now known as GeoEye-1, was originally scheduled for launch in April 2008 but lost its 30-day launch slot to a U.S. government mission which had itself been delayed. It was rescheduled for launch 22 August 2008 from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Delta II launch vehicle.[9] The launch was postponed to 4 September 2008, due to unavailability of the Big Crow telemetry-relay aircraft.[10][11] It was delayed again to 6 September because Hurricane Hanna interfered with its launch crews.
The launch took place successfully on 6 September 2008 at 18:50:57 UTC. The GeoEye-1 satellite separated successfully from its Delta II launch vehicle at 19:49 UTC, 58 minutes and 56 seconds after launch.[5]
GeoEye-1 provides 0.41 m (16 in) panchromatic and 1.65 m (5.4 ft) multispectral imagery at nadir in 15.2 km (9.4 mi) swaths. The spacecraft is in a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 681 km (423 mi) and an inclination of 98 degrees, with a 10:30 a.m. equator crossing time.[3][12][13]GeoEye-1 can image up to 60 degrees off nadir. It is operated out of Dulles, Virginia.[14]
At the time of its launch, GeoEye-1 was the world's highest resolution commercial Earth-imaging satellite.[15]GeoEye-1 was manufactured in Gilbert, Arizona, by General Dynamics and the first image was returned on 7 October of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania.[16]
Google, which had its logo on the side of the rocket, has exclusive online mapping use of its data. While GeoEye-1 is capable of imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters per pixel (16 in/px), that resolution was only available to the U.S. government. Google has access to details of 50 cm per pixel (20 in/px). Prior maximum commercial imagery was 60 cm (24 in).[17]
In December 2009 GeoEye announced it had suspended imagery collections by GeoEye-1 for a few days, citing an irregularity in the downlink antenna. "The irregularity appears to limit the range of movement of GeoEye-1's downlink antenna, which may in turn affect GeoEye-1's ability to image and downlink simultaneously," GeoEye said at a press conference.[19] However, the satellite continued with normal operations shortly thereafter, though with diminished simultaneous imaging-and-downlink capability for non-U.S. clients.[20]
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
