October 9, 2008 at 18:14Google's "Super Satellite" takes the first shot
The GeoEye-1, which provides a resolution of 41 cm / pixel, which is the highest indicator for all existing commercial satellites, made its first shot .
The picture was taken on October 7, 2008 at 12:00 EDT from a height of 680 km at a speed of 7.6 km / s. It should be noted: although Google is the sponsor of the project and it has the logo of an Internet company on board, the main investor of the project and the "consumer" of information is the US intelligence agency (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency). It paid about $ 250 million out of about half a billion dollars in the cost of the project (this is strange, because the Americans have much better quality satellites that can even photograph newspaper headlines in the hands of an ordinary passerby on Red Square).
Despite the investments from scouts, satellite photos will be freely available on the Internet. However, with a slight restriction: the maximum resolution for the Internet under American law is 50 cm per pixel. Google has an exclusive contract to publish these images.
The second GeoEye-2 satellite with a resolution of 25 cm per pixel will be launched in 2011 or 2012. However, if the legislation does not change, then users will not notice any progress.
The picture was taken on October 7, 2008 at 12:00 EDT from a height of 680 km at a speed of 7.6 km / s. It should be noted: although Google is the sponsor of the project and it has the logo of an Internet company on board, the main investor of the project and the "consumer" of information is the US intelligence agency (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency). It paid about $ 250 million out of about half a billion dollars in the cost of the project (this is strange, because the Americans have much better quality satellites that can even photograph newspaper headlines in the hands of an ordinary passerby on Red Square).
Despite the investments from scouts, satellite photos will be freely available on the Internet. However, with a slight restriction: the maximum resolution for the Internet under American law is 50 cm per pixel. Google has an exclusive contract to publish these images.
The second GeoEye-2 satellite with a resolution of 25 cm per pixel will be launched in 2011 or 2012. However, if the legislation does not change, then users will not notice any progress.