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IKONOS Satellite
ITT's Digital Camera System On Board 
The launch on September 24, 1999 of Space Imaging's IKONOS commercial remote sensing satellite, including the deployment of its digital camera system designed and built by ITT, marks the beginning of the long-awaited era of one-meter resolution Earth imaging. The first images, beginning with a stunning high-resolution view of Washington DC, became available in early October 1999.
Developed for Thornton, Colorado-based SpaceImaging in just 30 months, the integrated imaging payload is enabling IKONOS to collect panchromatic (gray-scale) image data of Earth to one-meter resolution; and multi-spectral data (red, green, blue, and near infrared) to 4 meter resolution. The satellite's camera can distinguish objects on the ground as small as one meter in size from 400 miles above the Earth. This powerful remote sensing system has changed the way the public and private industry worldwide view the Earth's surface and plan for its future. The resulting images reveal aspects of the Earth's surface previously unavailable to the commercial world. The images offer stunning new information to farmers, city planners, environmental planners, realtors, geologists, the media and others. Manufacturing the Payload System IKONOS Image 
Space Imaging's IKONOS commercial remote sensing satellite image released (Click picture for a larger sample.) The space camera's electro-optical assembly consists of a lightweight telescope, a focal plane array, and a data compressor–all designed, manufactured and assembled by ITT. The all reflective telescope's mirrors have been finished to atomic-level smoothness using a proprietary polishing technique known as ion figuring. Using this computer-controlled process, ITT opticians shaped the telescope's 28 inch diameter primary mirror so perfectly that if it were enlarged to 100 miles in diameter, you could drive that distance and not hit any bumps higher than eight-hundredths of an inch. Optical precision of this magnitude is what enables this camera system to produce the highest quality imagery. Using lightweight materials and advanced manufacturing techniques ITT developed an extremely weight efficient camera. The weight of the primary mirror was reduced by cutting a honeycomb pattern into its core using abrasive waterjet technology, and fusing thin mirror plates to each face. To develop the cameras electronic eyes, ITT turned to Kodak's Microelectronics Technology division. Their expertise produced two different image sensors capable of surviving the rigors of space. The "eyes" of IKONOS — ITT's on-board imaging sensors — capture imagery across an 11km stretch of the Earth's surface. Once this image is obtained, ITT's Digital Processing Unit compresses and formats the digital imagery for transmission to Space Imaging's ground stations located throughout the world. One Stop Shopping Few companies have ITT's indigenous capability to design and build an entire high performance camera payload. Our technical capability to fabricate precision optics quickly, integrate the electronics, and design the focal plane in-house enable us to deliver systems at world class schedules. |
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