Monday, October 19. 2009

British Newspaper Files FOIA for NGA Imagery (What's Wrong with this Picture?)

The Express has filed the motion to get two year old NGA images of Portugal to try to help in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

“We hoped spy images may have captured the kidnapper watching the apartment prior to the event or even on the day itself. Obviously, having a picture would have speeded up the apprehension of the offender,” said a source from the Portuguese Police.

- The Examiner

Wednesday, October 14. 2009

Whose Logos were on WorldView-2 Rocket?

Bing's (Microsoft) and Nokia's. Google (corrected 10/15, originally said Microsoft) has an exclusive on the GeoEye-1 imagery, but will "share" the WorldView-2 data with Google.

- C|net

Feds Look to Build their Own Sats Even as they Tap Commercial Sat Vendors

A conference agreement between the House and Senate for the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill includes a provision directing the Defense Department to develop two commercial-grade satellites, one with a 1.1-meter aperture and a second with a more powerful 1.5-meter aperture. It's expected to pass both houses next week.

During the same period, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) put out a classified request to commercial players to determine how they could meet U.S. government needs.

- GovExec

Wednesday, October 7. 2009

Watch the Launch of WorldView-2 Live Today

Today, you will be able to watch the launch of DigitalGlobe’s (NYSE: DGI) WorldView-2 satellite. The launch is scheduled for 11.38 a.m. PDT.  The launch will be streamed LIVE over the Internet, accessible here: http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bls/missions/worldview-2/

Wednesday, September 30. 2009

GPS in the Snow

Recall that one of the errors in GPS is called "mulitipath error" - that's when the signal from the GPS satellite bounces off something before it gets to the receiver, making its path artificially "longer." Its noise for most applications, but in fact is valuable in ... wait for it... measuring snow depth. Researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder, looking to learn about the impact of soil moisture on the echoes found their experiment in the middle of a snow storm. That lead to a startling realization: "The snow slowed the reflected GPS signals, and the delay corresponded to the snow's depth..." That in turn led to a method to accurately measure snow fall in real time. The team's paper, in Geophysical Research Letters appeared this month.

- ScienceNow

Wednesday, September 23. 2009

Sungevity Gets More Funding, Executives

Sungevity, a company that uses satellite imagery and obliques to short cut the process of determining the potential for solar panels and providing a quote for an installation recently tapped into $6 million from investors and hired several new executives. More players are entering the solar panel installation space and the use of the imagery, which ideally cuts costs and time to install, distinguishes Sungevity, at least so far!

previous APB coverage

- VentureBeat