Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 12—all the colors of the rainbow—from space!!!

This lesson is not about space Skittles. Nor is it about any political parties or leanings within or without closets. The one thing I am asking you to do for this and the remainder of these imagery operations lessons, is keep in mind I am guessing. I don’t KNOW exactly how DigitalGlobe conducts their space […]

Space imagery tells you why there’s no hurricane coming towards you…YES–YOU!!

From the pages of Phys.org, this is a good article about how imagery is helping scientists understand the world better. Dust from Africa apparently might be affecting the weather in the Americas. Pretty interesting stuff. This is all put together, a composite, of the images taken from the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership, using its Visible […]

Too much Corona, a Discoverer’s tale seen through the Keyhole

I just came upon this article from the Discovery Channel, and it tickled some memory cells. Back when we just started lobbing imagery satellites up into low earth orbit, we didn’t have the comprehensive ground systems and bandwidth of today. There was no such thing as a digital camera to be used as a payload. […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 11—Payloads and programs—the lesson that won’t get learned.

Last lesson, you learned a little bit about satellite busses and bus-driving. Almost all satellite busses are similar to each other. If you looked at a RapidEye satellite bus specifications and a Digitalglobe satellite bus, you’d likely think they might be one and the same. But the payload is different. The satellite payload (and orbit) […]

A shadow of the future: When is a space shuttle not a space shuttle?

When it is a museum-piece being shuttled by an airplane to its resting place. Digitalglobe’s twitter-feed just sent this out. A little sad picture of the past (almost a year ago). Note the artifacting of the image in the photo? The way Digitalglobe explain it is the aircraft is moving fast during the time their […]