#digital globe

The past and the future combine to make this incredible image. 

To celebrate the start of orbital operations for Worldview-4, DigitalGlobe released a pretty sweet image of the company’s newest satellite, WorldView-4, as it race to orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The kicker: it’s taken from space.

That’s right. The company’s WorldView-2 satellite -- an older iteration of the WV-4 design -- snapped this epic shot as it was flying 396 miles northeast of the California launch complex. 

Launched in 2009, WorldView-2 features a color resolution of six feet, while the upgraded WorldView-4 satellite boasts a color resolution of four feet and a black and white resolution of one foot. As a result, many of the complex’s support structures can be seen in modest detail. 

Both satellites are operated by DigitalGlobe. As part of its upgraded features, the WV-4 satellite is toting a camera powerful enough to resolve objects as small as 1-foot-wide from a distance of 383 miles. The satellite — which is roughly the same size as a Chevy Suburban — can image nearly 263,000 square miles each day, and will join three other WorldView satellites already in orbit. Together, the quartet can view a single location 4.5 times per day. 

The cameras on board these satellites are so powerful, they are enabling the satellites to change lives here on Earth in ways no one expected. For instance, in July 2015, WorldView-4’s sister satellite, WorldView-3, helped shut down a human trafficking ring in the South Pacific. High-resolution imagery from the satellite provided the smoking gun needed to identify a fleet of fishing boats that relied on slave labor. The slave boats shared their catches with commercial fishing vessels, who turned off their locator beacons during the illegal exchanges.

AP reporter Martha Mendoza discovered the fleet and provided DigitalGlobe with a region near Papua New Guinea to search for fishing vessels who were involved in slave labor rings. Within 24-hours, the WorldView-3 satellite had it’s smoking gun of evidence: images of the Silver Sea 2 fishing vessel attached to two slave labor ships. In the captured images, the vessel is shown with cargo holds open, waiting to receive the slave-caught payload.

The discovery resulted in a series of arrests, shut down the slave ring, and helped free 2,000 slaves, ultimately reuniting them with their families. DIgitalGlobe also released a detailed image of Subi Reef in the South China Sea to show off the new satellite’s abilities.

-ALT

Source & Image Credit: DigitalGlobe

Analysis of commercial satellite images between July 20 and July 22 appears to show that North Korea is, in fact, beginning to dismantle its newest launch site. Although North Korea has claimed it was used purely for its “civilian space program,” U.S. officials previously identified it as the site Kim Jong Un pledged to dismantle at the Singapore summit.

Analysts believed Kim’s gesture would be primarily symbolic:

“The missile testing is not just done in Tongchang-ri so it does not necessarily mean all ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] will be disabled ... Sohae has technically been used as an ‘engine’ testing site. North Korea has already finished developing [the] Baekdu Engine, so there would be no problem running ICBM missile programs even if they close down the Sohae site. ... It’s only a good deal if they dismantle all the facilities at Sohae and re-employ the scientists in something civilian.”

Symbolism, however, can be very important to the North Koreans. And this is a well-known launch site.

In general, I have nothing but disdain for Donald Trump and what he thinks of as “diplomacy.” And I agree with pretty much every analyst in the world that his meeting with North Korea was a foolish mistake and nothing of substance will come out of it.

But I won’t mind being proven wrong, if it means North Korea really does completely give up its nuclear weapons, program, and ambitions. (Even though it would mean North Korea proved that you can get whatever concessions you want from the world if you defy everyone, build nukes, and threaten to use them. Which is not a lesson I’d like to see other countries learn.)