DigitalGlobe launched its commercial imagery satellite WorldView-3 on Wednesday, giving Google and other search giants the opportunity to capture better images of Earth from space.
The launch took place at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where the spacecraft was sent off from the top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at 2:30 p.m. EDT, according to Space.com.
Representatives for the Longmont, Colorado-based satellite company said WorldView-3 is able to take sharper images than any other non-governmental satellite, as well as pass through fog and smoke to acquire detailed images of the Earth's surface.
Kumar Navulur, director of next-generation products at DigitalGlobe, said the satellite's technology is able to capture up to 680,000 square kilometers of images per day, and can even distinguish the difference between a truck, SUV, or sedan, PC Magazine reported. However, the technology is not yet strong enough to view license plate numbers.
While satellite companies have been previously restricted to taking images with a resolution of 50cm, the Commerce Department has given them permission to capture and sell images with a resolution of 25cm.
"Having the highest available resolution is extremely important because it directly correlates with the amount of information you can extract from an image," DigitalGlobe wrote in a June blog post. "Once an image is collected, new information can't be added through software or processing tricks. You can make a sharp image blurry, but not the other way around."
Google signed a multi-year imagery deal with DigitalGlobe in February in order to improve the capabilities of Google Earth, Maps, Street View, and other apps. The search giant is among other major companies that are customers of DigitalGlobe, including Microsoft, NASA, and U.S. federal agencies like National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which helped find Osama Bin Laden, Motherboard reported.
WorldView-3 joins the five satellites DigitalGlobe currently has up in space. One of them, GeoEye-1, can take pictures at 41 centimeters.
The launch of DigitalGlobe's new spacecraft follows Google's acquisition of satellite company Skybox Imaging, Motherboard reported. Skybox plans to launch 24 satellites by 2018 to capture images of the whole Earth three times a day.
WorldView-3 has raised concerns about privacy, but Google said it will use the spacecraft for beneficial purposes. Positive uses for the satellite include natural disaster relief and providing Internet access to new places.
