IKONOS

IKONOS is a commercial earth observation satellite, and was the first to collect publicly available high-resolution imagery at 1- and 4-meter resolution. It offers multispectral (MS) and panchromatic (PAN) imagery. The IKONOS launch was called in the New York Times “one of the most significant developments in the history of the space age.” IKONOS imagery began being sold on January 1 2000.

It derived its name from the Greek term "eikōn" for image. [http://www.geoeye.com/CorpSite/products/imagery-sources/Default.aspx?keywords=ikonos&creative=1350458344&gclid=COS9staay5UCFQxxHgodvCAIiQ]

History

IKONOS was originated under the Lockheed Martin Corporation as the Commercial Remote Sensing System (CRSS) satellite. On April 1994 Lockheed was granted one of the first licenses from the U.S. Department of Commerce for commercial satellite high-resolution imagery. On October 25, 1995 partner company Space Imaging received a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to transmit telemetry from the satellite in the eight-gigahertz Earth Exploration Satellite Services band. Prior to launch, Space Imaging changed the name of the satellite to IKONOS. IKONOS comes from the Greek word for "image".

Two satellites were originally planned for operation. "IKONOS-1" was planned for launch in 1999 but the launch failed. "IKONOS-2" was planned for launch in 2000, but was renamed "IKONOS" and was launched on September 24, 1999 from Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The imaging sensors are panchromatic and multispectral. This satellite has a polar, circular, sun-synchronous 681-km orbit and both sensors have a swath width of 11 km. Its weight is 1600 pounds (720 kg).

In November 2000 Lockheed Martin received the "Best of What's New" Grand Award in the Aviation & Space category from Popular Science magazine. Space Imaging was acquired by ORBIMAGE in September 2005. The company was later renamed to GeoEye.

pecifications

pacecraft

IKONOS is a 3-axis stabilized spacecraft designed by Lockheed Martin. The design later became known as the LM900 satellite bus system. The satellite's attitude is measured by two star trackers and a sun sensor and controlled by four reaction wheels; location knowledge is provided by a GPS receiver. The design life is 7 years; S/C body size=1.83 m x 1.57 m (hexagonal configuration); S/C mass = 817 kg; power = 1.5 kW provided by 3 solar panels.

The LM900 spacecraft is a three-axis stabilized bus that is designed to carry scientific payloads in LEO orbits. It provides precision pointing on an ultra stable highly agile platform. Payloads for a variety of scientific and remote sensing applications may be accommodated including laser sensors, imagers, radar sensors, electro-optical and astronomical sensors, as well as planetary sensors. The LM900 bus shares a hardware heritage with Iridium, which is the basis for the LM700 bus.

Communications

IKONOS conducts telemetry, tracking and control in the 8345.968-8346.032 MHz band (downlink) and 2025-2110 MHz band (uplink). Downlink data carrier operates in the 8025-8345 MHz band.

patial resolution

*0.8 m panchromatic (1-m PAN)
*4-meter multispectral (4-m MS)
*1-meter pan-sharpened (1-m PS)Spectral Resolution

Temporal resolution

The revisit rate for IKONOS is 3 to 5 days off-nadir and 144 days for true-nadir.

Radiometric resolution

The sensor collects data with a 11-bit (0-2047) sensitivity and are delivered in an unsigned 16-bit (0-65565) data format. From time-to-time the data are rescaled down to 8-bit (0 - 255) to decrease file size. When this occurs much of the sensitivity of the data needed by Remote Sensing scientists is lost.

wath

11 km x 11 km (Single Scene)

See also

image processing software by b.e.i.t. k.j. somaiya

References

* [http://www.amerisurv.com/content/view/2198/2/ Annual Selection of Spectacular Satellite Images to be Determined by Public Voting Thursday, 23 December 2004]
* [http://geo.arc.nasa.gov/sge/health/sensor/sensors/ikonos.html Sensor Specifications: Ikonos NASA]
* cite news
last = Turner
first = Linda
title = Space Imaging granted FCC license for private remote sensing satellite system
publisher = Business Wire
date = 1995-10-25
url = http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Space+Imaging+granted+FCC+license+for+private+remote+sensing...-a017442820
accessdate = 2008-08-23
* cite news
last = Business Editors/Aerospace Writers
title = Lockheed Martin-built IKONOS Satellite Receives Prestigious Award by Popular Science Magazine
publisher = Business Wire
date = 2000-11-09
url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2000_Nov_9/ai_66774062
accessdate = 2008-08-23
* cite news
last = Schutzberg
first = Adena
title = ORBIMAGE Acquires Space Imaging: The Past and the Future
publisher = Directions Magazine
date = 2005-09-21
url = http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=1973&trv=1
accessdate = 2008-08-23
* cite paper
author = Lockheed Martin
title = LM900 Bus Program Specification Sheet
date = undated
url =http://rsdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/rapidii/Specs/lm900sp_020700.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2008-08-23

External links

* [http://www.geoeye.com/CorpSite/products/imagery-sources/Default.aspx#ikonos IKONOS page on the Geo-Eye website]