WorldView 2
WorldView-2, launched on October 8, 2009, gathers imagery in eight spectral bands and covers 975,000 km² per day.
Technical specifications
What you can do with WorldView 2
Detail at 50cm GSD
At 50cm GSD, vehicles are countable, and building outlines, road furniture and single trees stay distinct. The panchromatic band carries that geometry, and the 2m GSD multispectral bands are pansharpened against it, so colour products hold the same detail.
Bands past red, green and blue
Alongside blue, green, red and near-infrared, this sensor collects a coastal band, a yellow band, a red edge band and a second near-infrared band. The coastal band reaches furthest into water, which is what shallow-water depth and water-quality work reads. The red edge sits on the step where vegetation reflectance climbs, so stress registers there before true colour shows it.
One satellite collecting
Collection rests on a single spacecraft, so opportunities arrive on its orbit rather than on demand. As stated by the supplier: 975,000 km² per day of collection capacity. A large area of interest competes for that capacity with everything else in the queue.
Stereo for elevation
Stereo pairs are collectable, so elevation comes out of the imagery itself instead of a global model: building heights, stockpile and pit surfaces, the shape of structures on the site you ordered.