WorldView 4

WorldView-4 was an imaging and environment-monitoring satellite from Maxar of the United States, which launched on 11 November 2016 to enhance European Space Imaging's customer offering with very high resolution imagery options.

Operating in coordination with WorldView-3 and the other satellites of the WorldView constellation, it offered high-resolution imagery at 31 cm resolution in panchromatic mode and 1.23 m in multispectral mode; it provided large area single pass (synoptic) collection, which eliminates temporal variations and offers geolocation accuracy and bi-directional scanning with daily revisits.

On 7 January 2019, WorldView-4 was retired when the satellite experienced a failure in its CMGs (Control Moment Gyros), preventing the satellite from collecting imagery due to the loss of an axis of stability.

Satellite characteristics

Launch Date - End 11 November 2016 - 7 January 2019

Status Decommissioned

Orbit type polar sun-synchronous

Altitude 617

Equatorial crossing time 10:30 (descending node)

Orbit period 96.96

Satellite family: Digital Globe - MDA Constellation

DigitalGlobe is an American supplier of very high-resolution commercial satellite imagery. DigitalGlobe owns and operates a fleet of Earth imaging satellites including IKONOS, Quickbird, GeoEye-1 and WorldView 1,2,3 and the recently launched WorldView 4 capable of seeing objects as small as 30 cm.
On February 2017, DigitalGlobe has agreed to combine with MDA, the Canadian radar, telecommunications, and imagery corporation.

With IKONOS, a new era of 1m spatial resolution imagery began for spaceborne instruments in the field of civil Earth observation. IKONOS-2 was the world’s first commercial satellite to collect panchromatic images with 80 cm resolution and multispectral imagery with 3.2 meter resolution. It was decommissioned in March 2015 ending a 15 year mission life.

Sensor characteristics

Sensor name CAVIS (corrects for Clouds, Aerosols, Vapors, Ice, and Snow)
Sensor short description
Sensor type Imaging radiometer (Vis/IR)
Resolution class Medium (30 - 300 m)
Spatial resolution 30<br>30
Swath width (at nadir) 13 km
Revisit frequency 4 dagen
Sensor name WV110 (WorldView-110 camera)
Sensor short description
Sensor type Imaging radiometer (Vis/IR)
Resolution class Submetric
Spatial resolution 0.46<br>1.8
Swath width (at nadir) 16 km