Commercial satellite imagery company GeoEye said recently its third satellite, the next-generation, high-resolution imagery spacecraft GeoEye-2, will launch and be operational in the first half of 2013.
GeoEye also said on its website since subcontractor and partner Lockheed Martin [LMT] successfully completed GeoEye-2 spacecraft power-on testing and payload integration, the company is performing the functional and environmental testing phases of the program.
Lockheed Martin is completing development and construction of GeoEye-2 and its associated command-and-control system, GeoEye said on its website. Prior to this partnership, GeoEye and Lockheed Martin have been performing long-lead development and procurement activities for GeoEye-2 under an interim purchase agreement. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Paul McDonald, GeoEye spacecraft director at Lockheed Martin, told reporters during a webinar recently 90 percent of the spacecraft’s hardware has been delivered and installed.
Tony Frazier, GeoEye vice president for marketing, also said GeoEye-2 has received interest from four foreign governments, but he wouldn’t specify which ones. Approximately 26 percent of the company’s 2011 revenues were generated by international customers (affiliates, government agencies and commercial resellers), according to a spokesman.
GeoEye is also partnering with ITT Exelis [XLS] on GeoEye-2 by contributing the imaging payload, which includes a telescope, sensor subsystem and outer barrel assembly. ITT Exelis announced on April 10 the imaging payload was shipped to Lockheed Martin’s Sunnyvale, Calif., facility. All of GeoEye-2’s Critical Design Reviews (CDR) have also been successfully completed, the company said.
GeoEye said GeoEye-2 features numerous improvements over its current high-resolution GeoEye-1 color satellite, including a camera with 0.34 meter, or 13.38 inch, resolution and a wider field of view. GeoEye-1’s camera has a 0.41 meter resolution.
GeoEye-2 was designed by Lockheed Martin to have a seven-year design life. GeoEye said GeoEye-2 also has a real-time geolocation accuracy of less than four meters. This next-generation satellite has also been vastly improved over previous generations, Frazier said, with improved agility, control movement gyros, direct tasking and downlink capabilities.