ORBIMAGE, THE Orbital Sciences' (OSC) subsidiary, plans to develop and launch a high-technology remote-sensing satellite, the OrbView, as a low-cost, accelerated-schedule replacement for the collapsed Eyeglass Consortium satellite venture.
Eyeglass floundered with the initial withdrawal of Litton Itek Optical Systems, but the OSC venture still has the support of other Eyeglass investors, including Saudi Arabia's Eirad.
The 140kg Orbview, which will be launched on a Pegasus XL booster in 1997, will produce panchromatic images, with a resolution down to 1m (3ft), and 8m- resolution multi-spectral images.
The first of Orbimage's remote-sensing satellites, the Microlab 1, was launched on 3 April. It is returning data on lightning and weather patterns and measuring global-temperature profiles of the Earth's atmosphere.
Other satellites planned are the SeaStar and SunCast, which will provide colour images of the world, and a daily prediction of the levels of ultraviolet radiation over the USA, respectively.
Source: Flight International