DigitalGlobe, a leading global provider of high-resolution earth imagery solutions, and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. jointly announced today they successfully completed the Critical Design Review (CDR) for DigitalGlobe’s next generation remote-sensing satellite, WorldView-3. The successful CDR was completed in late August and keeps WorldView-3 on schedule for a planned launch in the middle of 2014. WorldView-3 will expand DigitalGlobe’s orbiting constellation to four remote-sensing satellites, all of which were manufactured by Ball Aerospace.
“As they have so many times in the past, Ball continues to impress us with their consistent professionalism and highly effective execution,” said Walter Scott, executive vice president and chief technical officer. “Having built WorldView-2, WorldView-1, and QuickBird, Ball has amassed an unmatched level of knowledge and experience. This ultimately results in lower risk and higher efficiency in the design and manufacture of WorldView-3, keeping us consistently on-plan and on-schedule for a mid-2014 launch.”
The CDR verified design modifications between WorldView-3 and WorldView-2, previously built by Ball for DigitalGlobe. This included validation of cost and schedule documentation and verification of test requirements that will allow Ball Aerospace to proceed into the final manufacturing, integration and the testing phase of the program.
“The successful CDR puts us on the path to bus integration in mid- to late-2012 followed by instrument integration in 2013,” said Cary Ludtke, vice president of Ball’s Civil and Operational Space business unit. “Our mission success with DigitalGlobe is built on our proven spacecraft bus and schedule performance.”
Ball Aerospace is providing the BCP 5000 for WorldView-3 and will integrate the remote-sensing instrument onto the spacecraft bus leading to system testing. The BCP 5000’s power, stability, agility, and data storage and transmission capability, together meet the requirements to deliver comprehensive Earth remote-sensing information.
The advanced Control Moment Gyroscopes provided for all the WorldView satellites afford the flexibility and agility to capture more imagery than ever before. Ball Aerospace previously built the trio of DigitalGlobe satellites currently on orbit including WorldView-2 launched in 2009, WorldView-1 launched in 2007, and QuickBird launched in 2001.
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