OrbView-3

GeoEyes OrbView-3 satellite was among the worlds first commercial satellites to provide high-resolution imagery from space. OrbView-3 collected one meter panchromatic (black and white) or four meter multispectral (color) imagery at a swath width of 8 km for both sensors. One meter imagery enables more accurate viewing and mapping of houses, automobiles and aircraft, and makes it possible to create precise digital products. Four meter multispectral imagery provides color and near infrared (NIR) information to further characterize cities, rural areas and undeveloped land from space. Imagery from the OrbView-3 satellite complements existing geographic information system (GIS) data for commercial, environmental and national security customers. OrbView-3 orbits 470 km above the Earth in a sun-synchronous polar orbit while collecting imagery of the Earth's surface at one meter resolution in the Panchromatic (black and white) mode, or at four meter resolution in the Multispectral (color) mode with a three day repeat cycle. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) received 179,981 OrbView-3 image segments from GeoEye with no restrictions. The data were delivered in Basic Enhanced (Level 1B) radiometrically corrected format. The product files include satellite telemetry data, rational functions, post-processed Ground Sample Distance (GPS) at nadir data, and sufficient metadata for rigorous triangulation. The data in this collection were acquired between September 2003 and March 2007, from the multispectral (MS) and panchromatic (Pan) sensors. Over 84% of the Orbview-3 collection is PAN (black & white).