On January 27, 2015, QuickBird – one of DigitalGlobe’s oldest and most historically significant imaging satellites – re-entered Earth’s atmosphere after completing its 13-year mission on orbit.
QuickBird made more than 70,000 trips around the planet, capturing some 636 million square kilometres of high-resolution earth imagery that contributed to humanity’s understanding of our changing planet.
In its final orbit before its imager was turned off, QuickBird captured this final image – a view of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, taken on December 17, 2014. The satellite’s orbit had decayed to approximately 300 kilometres, resulting in an image with incredible ground resolution of 41 cm compared to its initial resolution of 61 cm panchromatic and 2.4 m multispectral.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. developed QuickBird, which was the highest resolution commercial satellite at the time. QuickBird played a key role in the establishment of the commercial remote sensing industry.
QuickBird imagery dating back to 2002 will remain available in DigitalGlobe’s imagery catalogue.
