Digital Globe’s Worldview 3 Launched
Digital Globe’s WorldView-3 multi-spectral Earth observation satellite was successfully launched on board a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on August 13th. Taking off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California the Atlas 5 rocket carried the nearly 3 tonne satellite into a polar sun-synchronous orbit at about 629 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.

Digital Globe’s WorldView-3 blasting off on board the Atlas 5-401 rocket.
It’s the 10th of 15 launches planned by United Launch Alliance for 2014, and quite an exciting one at that as Worldview-3 is the first satellite to provide high-res multi-spectral imagery for commercial use and is designed to be operational for a minimum of 7.5 years.
Earlier this year the US Department of Commerce approved a request by Digital Globe to make its ultra-sharp 25cm resolution imagery available for commercial use. Something that was previously only available to the US government and military. This new policy enables Digital Globe to provide 46cm resolution imagery immediately from its satellites currently in orbit, the GeoEye-1 and WorldView-2 satellites. The policy was however accompanied with a requirement, that Digital Globe is to wait until six months after WorldView-3 is fully operational before it can start offering the satellite’s 30cm resolution imagery to commercial costumers.
If you would like more information on the WorldView-3 satellite please follow the links below.
Our WorldView-3 blog
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp
United Launch Alliance