GEOEYE AFFILIATES WILL NOT HAVE DIRECT ACCESS TO NEW SATELLITE

November 12, 2007 at 2:06 pm | In Remote Sensing Law Current Events | Leave a Comment

GEOEYE AFFILIATES WILL NOT HAVE DIRECT ACCESS TO NEW SATELLITE
By PETER B. de SELDING
Space News Staff Writer

PARIS — GeoEye Inc. is overhauling its commercial business model as it prepares to launch a satellite whose sharpest imagery is beyond the reach of the company’s non-U.S. government customers and regional affiliates.

The shift will include giving GeoEye ownership of almost all the imagery produced by the GeoEye-1 satellite, now scheduled for launch in April aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket. For the company’s current Ikonos high-resolution spacecraft, regional affiliates in Germany, the United Arab Emirates and Japan have direct access to the satellite and can download imagery and sell it, paying a fee to GeoEye Inc.

Under current U.S. regulations, GeoEye-1’s highest-precision imagery — at resolutions of 41 centimeters in black-and-white mode and 1.64 meters in color — cannot be distributed to anyone except the U.S. government.

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