Apr 27 1999
From The Space Library
Lockheed Martin launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base an Athena II rocket, carrying the Ikonos I satellite, a civilian satellite capable of capturing the detailed images that only spy satellites could produce in the past. Launch officials had planned to cease communications with the craft 8 minutes after liftoff and to reestablish contact later in the flight, but had not been able to reestablish contact once initial communications ended. Officials were unable to determine whether the craft had remained in orbit. Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems had built the satellite; Raytheon had built the communications, image processing, and other elements of the system; and Eastman Kodak had built the digital camera system. The camera on board Ikonos I was capable of resolving objects as small as 1 square meter (11 square feet), enabling the satellite to distinguish between a car and a truck. Before the manufacture of Ikonos, only military satellites had possessed the ability to photograph Earth in such detail.
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