DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-1 satellite has been delivered to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in advance of its scheduled launch Sept. 18, DigitalGlobe announced.

The imagery satellite, built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., was developed under the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s NextView program. WorldView-1 will have an average revisit time of 1.7 days and be capable of collecting up to 750,000 square kilometers per day of half-meter imagery.

Following launch, WorldView-1 will undergo a calibration and check out period, with the first imagery expected to be available prior to Oct. 18, DigitalGlobe said. WorldView-1 is the first of two next-generation satellites DigitalGlobe plans to place in orbit.

Separately, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. has completed the integration and testing of its next-generation radar imagery satellite, the company announced. Radarsat-2 now is scheduled to be lofted into orbit in December aboard a Soyuz rocket, the company said.
Radarsat-2 is designed to provide radar imagery with a ground resolution of 3 to 100 meters.