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fork(2) [soylentnews.org] writes:

      The commercial Earth observation satellite WorldView-2 [satimagingcorp.com] was involved in a "debris-causing event" yesterday (July 19). According to SpaceNews [spacenews.com], "The Joint Space Operations Center, which is the Defense Department’s nerve center for space operations and tracks space objects from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, tweeted July 19 that it had identified a debris-causing event related DigitalGlobe's WorldView-2 satellite." From the article:

As a result, the JSpOC is tracking eight pieces of debris related to the incident. An estimated time of the event was not immediately available.

      "Earlier today JSPOC issued a 'debris causing event' notification related to DigitalGlobe's Worldview-2 satellite," the Longmont, Colorado-based company tweeted. "WorldView-2 is currently operational and is performing standard maneuvering and imaging tasks."

      The company tweeted an image of downtown Oakland, California taken by the satellite later that afternoon.

Air Force Capt. Nicholas Mercurio, a spokesman for U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Functional Component Command for Space and the 14th Air Force, said DigitalGlobe is conducting an investigation into what happened.

      Spaceflight Insider [spaceflightinsider.com] says:

WorldView-2 offers commercial panchromatic imagery with a resolution of less than a half-a-meter per pixel. The satellite was built by Ball Aerospace and launched on Oct. 8, 2009, atop a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base's Space Launch Complex 2W.

      The satellite is joined by WorldView-1, which launched in 2007; GeoEye-1, which was placed into orbit in 2008; and WorldView-3, which took to the skies in 2014. WorldView-2 takes a new picture of any place on Earth every 1.1 days.

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