Washington, DC Jan. 14, 1998 – The Earlybird 1 remote sensing satellite appears lost for good according to industry sources who told SpaceCast that its operator, Earthwatch, Inc. will announce the loss week and that it has abandoned the satellite, launched from Russia late last December.
The loss is believed a result of a major onboard failure of the spacecraft's control system, but troubleshooting by its builder, Ball Aerospace, is still underway and it remains too soon to make a definitive determination of the cause. The satellite was the most advanced privately launched optical-imaging spacecraft.
But the loss of Earlybird 1 may soon be followed by Earthwatch itself, if
industry rumors sweeping Washington Monday are correct. Sources say that
the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., builder of the competing
Orbimage remote sensing satellite system, may either acquire Earthwatch or
become a partner in the firm's data distribution architecture. A joint
press conference between the two firms was believed in the planning stages,
although spokespersons for Earthwatch refused to comment on the prospect.
If true, the merger of the two remote sensing projects follows a pattern
that began three years ago. Then, Ball Aerospace itself had high hopes of
launching its own space imagery subsidiary, called Worldview. But in 1995
Ball decided to merge Worldview into another remote sensing startup, and
become instead a premier builder – not operator -of small imagery
satellites. The company that absorbed Worldview? Earthwatch.
