Ball Successfully Runs Environmental Tests for WorldView 3 Satellite

Ball technicians inspect a WorldView 3 solar array. Photo: Ball Aerospace & Technologies

[Via Satellite 04-10-2014] Ball Aerospace completed a series of environmental tests on its commercial remote-sensing satellite, WorldView 3. The satellite, being built for DigitalGlobe, successfully passed thermal vacuum, acoustic, vibration and pyro-separation testing. Electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic compatibility will be complete on April 23.

An atmospheric instrument named CAVIS (Cloud, Aerosol, water Vapor, Ice, Snow) will monitor the atmosphere and improve upon WolrdView 3’s imagery when images are obstructed by dust, soot or haze. WorldView 3 is the first multi-payload, super-spectral, high-resolution commercial satellite for collecting environmental data and geospatial solutions.

The satellite will operate at an expected altitude of more than 383 miles high. It will be able to attain an extremely high-resolution quality of image through the 3.6-foot aperture telescope manufactured by Exelis. Imagery is collected at a 1 foot panchromatic resolution, 4.1 foot multispectral resolution, 1.1 foot Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) resolution, and 98.4 foot CAVIS resolution.

The WorldView 3 will allow DigitalGlobe customers to look for new sources of minerals and fuels, manage forests and farms and accelerate DigitalGlobe’s collection of Geospatial Big Data — a living inventory of the Earth’s surface. The satellite is expected to launch from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in mid-August.