Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What can you say about the launch of your GeoEye-1 satellite?

A. The Company successfully launched GeoEye-1 on September 6, 2008. The satellite was launched aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) (http://www.ulalaunch.com) Delta II launch vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Launch took place at exactly 11:50:57 a.m. (Pacific Time) to get the best orbit for imaging. The launch window was open for only 84 seconds. GeoEye-1, financed in part by a $500-million NextView contract with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), has the highest resolution of any commercial imaging system, 0.41-meters or 16 inches. It collects color or multispectral imagery at 1.65-meter resolution or about 64 inches. The imagery from GeoEye-1 was certified by the NGA on Feb. 20, 2009 as meeting their stringent requirements for quality, accuracy and resolution and was launched within four years of contract award with no cost overruns or change orders that often drive up the cost of such programs.

GeoEye-1 was lifted into a near-polar (sun-synchronous) orbit by a Delta II launch vehicle procured by Boeing Launch Services (http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bls/index.html) (Huntington Beach, Calif.) from United Launch Alliance (Denver, Colo.) This launch vehicle is the most reliable launch vehicle in its class with GeoEye-1 being its 83rd consecutive successful launch.

Q. When did you release the first GeoEye-1 image?

A. GeoEye released its first GeoEye-1 image on October 8, 2008. The image was of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and was collected at 12:00 p.m. EDT on Oct. 7, 2008 while GeoEye-1 was moving north to south in a 423-mile-high (681 km) orbit over the eastern seaboard of the U.S. at a speed of four-and-one-half miles per second. GeoEye started providing GeoEye-1 imagery to Google in mid-2009.

Q. What is the NextView program? Has it expired? Is there a follow-on contract to it?

A. The U.S. Government, through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), announced in March 2003 that it intended to support the continued development of the commercial satellite imagery industry by sharing the costs for the engineering, construction and launch of the next generation of commercial imagery satellites. ORBIMAGE (now GeoEye, Inc.) won the second of two $500-million NextView contracts on September 30, 2004, and a contract to build the satellite was awarded to General Dynamics in late 2004.

The NGA has issued a draft request for proposal of a new, multi-year follow-on contract to NextView called EnhancedView. It is one part of a larger satellite imagery strategy announced April 7, 2009 by U.S. Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair to serve both the U.S. military and intelligence communities. Commonly referred to as the Two-plus-Two plan, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office would purchase and operate two advanced high-resolution imaging satellites. The second part of the Two-plus-Two plan calls for the NGA to buy imagery data from commercial-class satellite providers under the EnhancedView Program, and an award is expected in late spring of 2010.

Q. How much did the satellite cost?

A. The total project cost (including the satellite and its camera, financing, launch, launch insurance and the four owned or leased ground stations) to bring the GeoEye-1 satellite into service was approximately $502 million. We are not providing the specific cost of the satellite itself.

Q. Is GeoEye-1 insured?

A. On September 26, 2007, we announced that the Company secured approximately $270 million of launch and first-year on-orbit insurance for GeoEye-1. There is a policy for $220 million for launch and the first year of on-orbit operations and a second policy of $50 million for launch plus three years of operations. Total premiums for these policies are about $41 million. This insurance was obtained at a premium rate that was less than previously anticipated. Willis Inspace acted as the broker. In August 2008, we purchased an additional $50 million of total loss only insurance. GeoEye is therefore insured for a total of $320 million.

Q. Are there restrictions on your GeoEye-1 license?

A. While GeoEye-1 can collect imagery at 0.41-meter ground resolutions, the Company’s operating license from the U.S. Government requires re-sampling the imagery to 0.5-meter for all customers not explicitly granted a waiver by the U.S. Government. Under current licensing constraints, only the U.S. Government would be allowed access to imagery at this highest resolution.

Q. What about the imagery 24-hour hold rule for space pictures better than IKONOS?

A. After a lengthy U.S. Government interagency review, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) notified commercial imagery providers that the 24-hour hold rule that was required for imagery at a resolution better than .82-meter is no longer in place. On June 29, 2007, GeoEye’s commercial remote sensing license was modified to reflect this change; therefore, GeoEye-1 imagery can be sold as soon as possible after it has been captured.

Q. Who built the satellite?

A. General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (AIS) (www.gd-ais.com) Gilbert, Arizona was GeoEye’s prime contractor and integrator for the satellite bus and telescope, which is much larger than IKONOS. The IKONOS satellite weighs 1,600 pounds; GeoEye-1 tips the scales at more than 4,300 pounds. Despite its size, the satellite is very agile and able to collect imagery very quickly as it moves 423 miles (681 kilometers) above the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour. GeoEye-1 was launched into a polar orbit on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

ITT Corporation’s Space Systems Division built the sensor and delivered it to General Dynamics for integration into the spacecraft in January 2007. ITT has a long heritage in building these systems for the U.S. Government, and GeoEye capitalized on that skill set. General Dynamics has had a "10 for 10" satellite success rate for deploying spacecraft. ITT has never had a failure of one of their sensors. No other single rocket design in the current era has strung together such a long and spotless track record.

Q. What are some unique characteristics of GeoEye-1?

A. Besides the unrivaled spatial resolution of 0.41-meters or about 16 inches, GeoEye-1 is designed to have exceptional geolocation accuracy. Customers can map natural and man-made features to better than five meters (16 feet) of their actual locations on the surface of the Earth without ground control points. This level of accuracy is unsurpassed. As far as imagery collection, in the panchromatic mode the satellite can collect up to 700,000 square kilometers in a single day and in the multispectral mode 350,000 square kilometers per day. Spatial resolution, geolocation accuracy and large-area coverage are the three specifications that commercial and government customers desire most.

Q. When did GeoEye begin selling imagery from GeoEye-1?

A. On February 5, 2009, GeoEye officially announced the Start of Commercial Operations for GeoEye-1 and began selling imagery to commercial customers around the world and to our government customers in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. On February 20, 2009, the Company announced GeoEye-1 had attained Full Operational Capacity certification from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and met their stringent requirements for quality, accuracy and resolution.

Q. How do I place an order for GeoEye-1 imagery?

A. There are several ways for commercial customers to purchase GeoEye-1 imagery.

Our Service Experts are available to answer any specific questions you may have regarding the purchase of our imagery products.

Please contact a Service Expert by phone Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. EST (-4 GMT).

Phone: 1.800.232.9037 (Within the United States)
          +1 703.480.5670 (International)
Email: info@geoeye.com

You may also contact an authorized GeoEye Channel Partner. GeoEye partners consist of businesses and organizations with a long history of expertise in the geospatial world, an unsurpassed knowledge base in remote sensing, and extensive domain experience in a variety of disciplines. Click here for contact details.

Q. Where are your GeoEye-1 ground stations?

A. GeoEye has a centralized command and control ground station facility at its headquarters in Dulles, Virginia. This operations center sends tasking and operating commands to the satellite and receives data downlinks from it. Three other stations are operated or leased by GeoEye in Alaska, Norway and Antarctica. Having a total of four ground stations provides the primary data reception needed due to the large volume of imagery that is captured by the satellite. We also have a facility in Thornton, Colorado (just North of Denver) which is the back-up ground station for GeoEye-1.

Q. How is imagery from GeoEye-1 used?

A. The Company’s current and future GeoEye-1 products serve a wide array of applications for defense, national and homeland security, air and marine transportation, oil and gas, mining, infrastructure, mapping and location-based services, insurance and risk management, agriculture, and environmental monitoring. Click here to read specific examples of unique imagery uses.

Q. Isn't GeoEye-1's resolution so good that it invades people's privacy?

A. No. The GeoEye-1 satellite can 'see' objects on Earth as small as 0.41-meters or about 16 inches in size. At that resolution, it is impossible to recognize individual people. The system is primarily used for mapping.

Q. What will follow GeoEye-1? Will there be a GeoEye-2?

A. On October 18, 2007 we announced that the Company signed a contract with ITT to begin work on the camera for GeoEye-2. This was the first step in a phased development process for an advanced, third-generation satellite capable of discerning objects on the Earth’s surface as small as 0.25-meter (9.75 inch) in size. The Company also expects to contract with a satellite builder in the near future and launch the satellite approximately three years after work begins under that contract. This contract shows that GeoEye will continue to maintain a constellation of Earth-imaging sensors that will provide our customers with assured access to imagery well into this decade.

GeoEye-2 will be of the same general class as GeoEye-1, but will benefit from significant improvements in capability, including enhanced direct tasking. While GeoEye has an operating license from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to build and launch a satellite constellation with this extremely high ground resolution, the final decision regarding GeoEye-2’s resolution will be made in response to how best to serve customer requirements, as well as consideration of the current regulatory environment. Under current licensing constraints, only the U.S. Government would be allowed access to imagery at this highest resolution.

We chose ITT as our digital camera supplier for GeoEye-2 because of their superior digital imaging products and excellent track record with delivery of both the GeoEye-1 and IKONOS sensors. As disclosed in our Third Quarter 2009 Form 10Q report, as of September 30, 2009 GeoEye has spent a total of $59.3 million on components for GeoEye-2.

FAQ

› What can you say about your next-generation system?
› When will you release any imagery?
› What is the NextView program?
› What happened to the satellite once it arrived at Vandenberg AFB before launch?
› How much did the satellite cost?

› more FAQs
Fact Sheet

Learn more about GeoEye-1's imaging, collection and advanced technical specifications.

› view fact sheet
GeoEye-1 Launched Sept. 6

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