Raytheon has been selected by the high-resolution Earth imagery company, DigitalGlobe, Inc., to develop the capability to support a September 2016 launch and mission planning of DigitalGlobe's WorldView-4 satellite.

Raytheon's Constellation Scheduling System (CSS) is the commercial geospatial mission planning system for companies who want cost and resource efficiencies through automation while increasing satellite utilization and imagery yield.

"Raytheon's CSS has a proven record of maximizing the capture of usable imagery," said Jane Chappell, vice president of Raytheon's Global Intelligence Solutions.

"DigitalGlobe's trust in Raytheon to expand their commercial constellation is confirmation of our reliable ground station automation services valued by satellite operators and commercial data providers."

DigitalGlobe owns and operates the world's most agile and sophisticated constellation of commercial Earth imaging satellites.

WorldView-4 - a commercial satellite featuring industry-leading 30 cm resolution imagery - will be the fifth DigitalGlobe satellite to have planning and scheduling support provided by Raytheon's CSS.

The system runs routine planning and scheduling automatically, yielding more efficient schedules, and allowing DigitalGlobe to focus on fulfilling customer orders for specific imagery.

The new competitively-awarded contract to prepare the ground station for WorldView-4 is part of the first phase in the development of DigitalGlobe's next generation ground system, Platform 20/20.

The September 2016 launch of WorldView-4, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, will be supported by Raytheon space launch range services.