Goodbye IKONOS and SPOT 5!

Images taken by IKONOS (Source: European Space Imaging)

IKONOS Decommissioned
After 15-plus years of successful service, DigitalGlobe made the decision to end the IKONOS mission. IKONOS was the world’s first sub-meter commercial earth imaging satellite, kick-starting what would become a multi-billion dollar industry for high resolution satellite imagery and geospatial products and services.

Built and launched by Lockheed Martin, IKONOS exceeded its initial life expectancy by nearly three times, collecting 599,754 images that contributed 408 million sq. km.—more than 8 times the surface of the globe—to the DigitalGlobe ImageLibrary. IKONOS archive imagery, dating back to 1999, provides the longest historical record of high resolution commercial satellite imagery and has greatly contributed to the understanding of our changing planet.

Farewell SPOT-5

After 13 years of loyal service, the SPOT 5 commercial operation stopped on March 31st. The SPOT imagery archive, collected over the last 3 decades represents a unique historical heritage to monitor the evolution of our planet over time. SPOT 5 was built and operated by Airbus Defence and Space.

The SPOT 5 satellite program combined the partnerships of France (CNES, National Centre for Space Research), Belgium (Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural affairs) and Sweden (Swedish National Space Board). Compared to its predecessors, SPOT 5 offered greatly enhanced capabilities in term of geolocation and collection capacity, with an improved resolution at 2.5m.

SPOT 5 offered the ideal balance between accuracy and an optimal combination of resolution and wide-area coverage. SPOT 5's other key feature was the on-board HRS (High Resolution Stereoscopic) instrument, designed to acquire stereoscopic images quasi-simultaneously. It enabled the generation of the Elevation 30 digital elevation model and ortho layer.

The SPOT imagery archive, collected over the last 3 decades represents a unique historical heritage to monitor the evolution of our planet over time and is fully accessible from GeoStore.