Google’s satellite beams down its first pictures

A Google sponsored satellite has beamed its first picture back to Earth in a successful test of a camera that will supply images for the internet giant’s free map and navigation services.

The high-resolution colour image from GeoEye-1, which was launched on September 6 from a US air force base in California, was of a university campus in Pennsylvania, the satellite’s operator GeoEye said.

The Virginia-based company provided a link to the image at its website: www.geoeye.com/CorpSite/gallery/Default.aspx

The picture of the Kutztown University campus was taken on Tuesday while the satellite was in a 681 km-high orbit over the east coast of the United States, GeoEye said.

“We expect the quality of the imagery to be even better as we continue the calibration activity,” said Brad Peterson, GeoEye’s vice president of operations.

GeoEye-1’s main client is the US government’s mapping arm, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, but Google is a key sponsor of the $500 million (€373m) satellite and has exclusive commercial rights to its images.

“We are pleased to release the first GeoEye-1 image, bringing us even closer to the start of the satellite’s commercial operations and sales to our customers,” said GeoEye chief executive Matthew O’Connell.

Because of national security concerns, GeoEye-1’s government clients will receive higher resolution photos than commercial clients such as Google, which plans to use the images on its popular Google Maps and Google Earth programs.

The satellite imagery from GeoEye-1 will be of a higher resolution and better quality than what is currently available on either of these two Google services.

The GeoEye-1 venture is not Google’s only trip into space. Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a space buff and has booked a seat on a flight to the International Space Station with the company Space Adventures, which plans to take space tourists to the orbiting space station beginning in 2011.