Launched on September 24, 1999, IKONOS is the world's first commercial satellite providing very high resolution (up to 1 m) imagery of the earth. The IKONOS satellite is operated by Space Imaging Inc. of Denver, Colorado, USA. IKONOS simultaneously collects one-meter resolution black-and-white (panchromatic) images and four-meter resolution color (multispectral) images. The multispectral images consist of four bands in the blue, green, red and near-infrared wavelength regions. The multispectral images can be merged with panchromatic images of the same locations to produce "pan-sharpened color" images of 1-m resolution. The satellite camera can distinguish objects on the Earth’s surface as small as one meter square, but it cannot see individual people. The IKONOS satellite is equipped with state-of-the-art star trackers and on-board GPS, enabling it to acquire imagery with very high positional accuracy. The IKONOS imagery is suitable for applications requiring a high level of details and accuracy, such as mapping, agricultural monitoring, resource management and urban planning.
IKONOS Orbit
| Type | Sun-Synchronous |
| Altitude | 681 km |
| Inclination | 98.1 deg |
| Descending node crossing time | 10:30 am local solar time |
| Period | 98 min |
| Off-Nadir Revisit | 1.5 to 2.9 days at 40o latitude |
Sensor Characteristics
| Viewing Angle | Agile spacecraft, along track and across track pointing |
| Swath Width | 11 km nominal at nadir |
| Image Modes | Single scene: 13 km x 13 km
Strips: 11 km x 100 km up to 11 km x 1000 km
Image mosaics: up to 12,000 sq. km |
| Metric Accuracy | 12 m horizontal, 10 m vertical without GCP |
| Radiometric Digitization | 11 bits |
| Spectral Bands | wavelength (µm) | Resolution |
| 1 (blue) | 0.40 - 0.52 | 4 m |
| 2 (green) | 0.52 - 0.60 | 4 m |
| 3 (red) | 0.63 - 0.69 | 4 m |
| 4 (NIR) | 0.76 - 0.90 | 4 m |
| Panchromatic | 0.45 - 0.90 | 1 m |
Link to: Space Imaging Web Page (http://www.spaceimaging.com).
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IKONOS, USA