IKONOS satellite retires

The satellite, which was launched in September 1999, collected more than 400 million square kilometers of imagery for national security and civilian customers, according to an announcement by Lockheed Martin, which built the satellite.

"Over the last 15 years IKONOS captured the moments of both triumph and tragedy that have shaped our world," said Mike Hamel, vice president of Lockheed Martin Commercial Space. "Its high-resolution images have helped make everyone from first responders and farmers to city planners and surveyors more effective and informed. So much of our technology today relies on publicly available satellite imagery that it's easy to take this technology for granted, but IKONOS was a real trailblazer that proved the value of space systems to our world."

Lockheed Martin is completing the WorldView-4 (previously GeoEye-2) satellite for DigitalGlobe. It is scheduled for launch in 2016.

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