It has been a rough few months for those admirers and users of commercial high-resolution satellite imagery with the announced decommissioning of QuickBird in March; and now we are sad to announce the end of IKONOS’ operational life. Launched into space on September 24, 1999, IKONOS surpassed its life expectancy by nearly ten years. During its nearly 15 years in space, IKONOS collected 599,754 images with 80-centimeter panchromatic and 3.2-meter multispectral resolution. Amassing more than 408 million square kilometers of coverage, IKONOS offers the longest record of any high-resolution commercial satellite ever launched.
Perhaps one of the most iconic IKONOS images ever collected. This is the site of the World Trade Center just 4 days after the tragedy of 9/11. You can see smoke still rising from the smoldering site of the World Trade Center in this 80-cm color IKONOS image collected on September 15, 2001. We offer this IKONOS data as a visual memorial to the lives lost in this tragic event – we will never forget. (Image Courtesy: DigitalGlobe)While it is certainly sad to lose one of our most beloved satellites, perhaps the biggest news story associated with the end of IKONOS’ mission is the suspension of all IKONOS archive orders starting immediately. The suspension of IKONOS archive orders is expected to last several months and perhaps into Q3 2015 or beyond. We will alert our valued clients with another Geospatial Times article when sales of the IKONOS archive recommence. We apologize up front for any inconvenience this may cause you!
If you would like to find out more about IKONOS’ technical specifications, you can refer to our website here. Or if you have any questions about the end of IKONOS’ mission or suspension of archive orders, please reach out to the Apollo Mapping sales team at sales@apollomapping.com.
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