When the GeoEye-1 surveillance satellite comes online this spring, its advanced optics will produce more-detailed images than any commercial satellite, capturing objects as small as home plate on a baseball diamond and filling in the fuzzy spots on Google Earth. Equipped with the most advanced technology ever used in a commercial remote sensing system, GeoEye-1 will collect images with the ability to pinpoint an object’s position on the ground within nine feet.

Scheduled for launch by a Delta II rocket on 22 August 2008 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, the 4,400-pound GeoEye-1 will blast 425 miles into space traveling in a sun-synchronous orbit and able to adjust its orbital altitude by 60 miles, which it will need to do to maintain a consistent view of Earth: Atmospheric drag and pressure from solar winds will gradually push the satellite down. The satellite’s expected life is seven years.

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