mc
short answer
essay
Prompt
[CHOICE] IKONOS — operator, altitude, bands, radiometric resolution.
Plain English answer (default view) — what you'd actually write on the test
**IKONOS** was the first U.S. **commercial sub-meter** satellite — launched 1999, retired 2015. Sub-meter means you can pick out individual cars and rooftops from space. Big deal because before IKONOS, that resolution was military-only. It carries a high-detail black-and-white **panchromatic** band plus four lower-detail color bands, which you fuse together ("pan-sharpening") to get color at the pan resolution. It paved the way for today's commercial high-res constellation — WorldView, GeoEye, Pléiades, SkySat.
🔬 Technical version / model bullets (revealed on click) — one bullet per line
First commercial sub-meter satellite (Space Imaging, Sept 1999 – Mar 2015). Altitude **~681 km**, sun-synchronous. Bands: Pan 0.45–0.90 µm at **1 m**; 4 MS bands (B/G/R/NIR) at **4 m**. Radiometric **11-bit** → 2 048 levels. Off-nadir up to ±45°, swath ~11–13 km, revisit 1–3 days.
💡 Mnemonic / memory aid (shown on hover)
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