Mary-Louise Hoffman
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has performed internal environment assessments on a remote-sensing satellite the company developed for DigitalGlobe and designed to collect Earth imagery.
DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 spacecraft features a Ball Aerospace technology that is built to monitor atmospheric conditions and photograph objects through haze, soot and dust, DigitalGlobe said Tuesday.
Cary Ludtke, Ball Aerospace vice president and general manager of the operational space business, said the WorldView-3 will launch in mid-August to take high-resolution images of the planet.
Ball Aerospace tested the satellite’s thermal vacuum, vibration, noise and pyro-separation aspects and expects to finish electromagnetic interference and compatibility tests by April 23.
The commercial satellite is designed to operate at an altitude of 617 kilometers and contains Ball Aerospace’s CAVIS atmospheric sensor and Exelis‘ aperture telescope.
