IKONOS-2 was the world's first sub-metre commercial Earth imaging satellite, kick-starting what would become a multi-billion dollar industry for high-resolution satellite imagery and geospatial products and services. Over its lifetime, IKONOS-2 collected more than 400 million km² of Earth imagery.

The IKONOS-2 orbit was designed to provide global coverage, consistent access times, and near-nadir viewing angles. The system was capable of 1:10,000 scale mapping without ground control and 1:2,400 scale mapping with ground control. The IKONOS ground station produced radiometrically corrected images, georectified images, orthorectified images, stereo pairs, and digital elevation models (DEMs) for image analysis, photogrammetric, and cartographic applications.