Maxar Satellite Imagery

Maxar launched the first two WorldView Legion satellites in May 2024, and released the first images in July 2024. On August 15, 2024, Maxar confirmed that its third and fourth WorldView Legion satellites, part of a first block of six, are functioning well after being launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. Maxar plans to launch the fifth and sixth WorldView Legion satellites in the coming months. These six satellites will enhance Maxar's imagery capabilities by tripling the collection of 30 cm-class imagery, increasing the daily collection capacity to 6 million square kilometers, and enabling up to 15 revisits per day of some locations on Earth.

WorldView-4 offers multispectral, high-resolution commercial satellite imagery from the Maxar imagery archive. WorldView-4 is retired from the Maxar constellation, but it provides archive imagery at 31 cm panchromatic resolution and 1.23 meter multispectral resolution.

WorldView-3 was the first multi-payload, super-spectral, high-resolution satellite offered to the public commercially. Orbiting at an altitude of 617 km; the WorldView-3 commercial satellite provides 31 cm panchromatic resolution, 1.24 meter multispectral resolution, 3.7 meter short-wave infrared resolution, and 30 m CAVIS resolution. WorldView-3’s revisit time averages to less than one day. The WV3 satellite is capable of collecting up to 680,000 sq km per day. The WorldView-3 satellite greatly enhanced Maxar‘s collection capacity to offer more rapid and reliable collections to its commercial and government clients.

WorldView-2, launched October 2009, is the  first high-resolution 8-band multispectral commercial satellite. Operating at an altitude of 770 km, WorldView-2 provides 46 cm panchromatic resolution and 1.85 meter multispectral resolution. WorldView-2 has an average revisit time of 1.1 days and is capable of collecting up to 1 million sq km of 8-band imagery per day, greatly enhancing Maxar’s multispectral collection capacity for more rapid and reliable collection. WorldView-2 substantially expands imagery product offerings to all Maxar customers.

WorldView-1, launched September 2007, is the first of our next-generation satellites—the most agile satellites ever flown commercially. The high-capacity, panchromatic imaging system features half-meter resolution imagery. Operating at an altitude of 496 km, WorldView-1 has an average revisit time of 1.7 days and is capable of collecting over one million sq km per day of half-meter imagery. The satellite is also equipped with state-of-the-art geolocation accuracy capabilities and exhibits stunning agility with rapid targeting and efficient in-track stereo collection. WorldView-1 resides in a descending node of 1:30pm.

The GeoEye-1 satellite is equipped with some of the most advanced technology ever used in a commercial remote sensing system. The satellite collects images at .46-meter panchromatic (black-and-white) and 1.84-meter multispectral resolution. The satellite can collect up to 500,000 square kilometers of pan- sharpened multispectral imagery per day. This capability is ideal for large-scale mapping projects. GeoEye-1 can revisit any point on Earth once every three days or sooner.

The IKONOS satellite is the world’s  first commercial satellite to collect panchromatic (black-and-white) images with .80 meter resolution and multispectral (4-band) imagery with 3.2-meter resolution. Imagery from the panchromatic and multispectral sensors can be merged to create .80 meter color imagery (pan-sharpened). IKONOS imagery is being used for national security, military mapping, air and marine transportation, and by regional and local governments. From a 423-mile-high orbit, IKONOS had a revisit time of once every three days and downlinks directly to more than a dozen ground stations around the globe.

Maxar's retired QuickBird satellite is no longer collecting imagery but continues to offer sub-meter resolution imagery with high geolocational accuracy through the imagery archive. With global collection of panchromatic and multispectral imagery, QuickBird imagery supports a wide range of geospatial applications.