Satellite google maps for free#
Satellite google maps series#

“Large metropolitan areas get imaged most often,” Dierks concedes.

Unfortunately, unless you live in a major city, then you are unlikely to benefit in the short term from the improved images captured by this new satellite.

But most of us will probably use them to look at our house from space. Images from WorldView-3 will be sold to thousands of businesses for everything from urban planning to forest monitoring, oil exploration to map making. Still, from more than 600km away, travelling at around eight kilometres per second, capturing an image half-a-metre across is an impressive technical achievement, and is less likely to raise concerns about privacy.

Satellite google maps for free#

But, for obvious reasons, the US military does not make those images available for free on Google. The latest US spy satellites, in comparison, are reported to be able to pick out objects less than 10cm (4 inches) across. For everyone else, the company is only licenced to release images with a resolution of 50cm (20 inches). However, DigitalGlobe can only sell these highest-resolution images to customers in the US government. The satellite will be able to point to particular areas of interest and is capable of seeing objects just 25cm (10 inches) across. “Seeing the flag makes our government customers unbelievably happy,” laughs Dierks. Behind it, a giant Stars and Stripes flag has been painted across the wall. The big difference – apart from the size – between this and a typical handheld digital camera, is that the spacecraft will not just take snapshots but continuous images along thin strips of land or sea.

Satellite google maps series#

The light comes in through a barrel structure, pointed at the Earth, and is bounced around by a series of mirrors, before being focused onto a CCD sensor. With its long cylindrical shape, WorldView-3 looks more like a telescope than a camera and it works on the same principle. “At its simplest, it is a decent resolution digital camera in space,” he explains, as we peer through the window into the clean room where the spacecraft is being built. What’s surprising is how basic the technology is.

Rather than operate its own spacecraft, Google buys its images from a small number of commercial satellite operators, and Dierks has worked on most of the satellites used. “It gives me a lot of pride when I see a satellite image on a news programme with the DigitalGlobe logo on them.” “Everybody I’m sure has looked up their house, their downtown, their business on Google Earth, and seen images from these satellites,” says Jeff Dierks, Program Manager at Ball. Together they have changed the way we view the world. This month Google Maps celebrates its ninth anniversary, and in June so does the company’s 3-D mapping app, Google Earth. It is the latest in a series of spacecraft designed to beam back high-resolution pictures of our planet, images that most of us will eventually see on Google Maps or Google Earth. Spinning around the planet some 600 kilometres (370 miles) above us, it will cover every part of the Earth’s surface every couple of days.īall Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado is building WorldView-3 for commercial satellite operator DigitalGlobe. Once in orbit later this year, WorldView-3 will be one of the most powerful Earth observation satellites ever sent into space by a private company. Behind a long rectangular window, in a high white room tended by ghostly figures in masks and hats, a new satellite is taking shape.