Press Release

Space Imaging Receives Multi-Million Dollar Pentagon Contract for Commercial Satellite Imagery

By SpaceRef Editor
January 17, 2003
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Space Imaging announced today that it has
been awarded a multi-year satellite imagery capacity contract by the National
Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). Under terms of the contract, NIMA would
acquire imagery worldwide from Space Imaging’s IKONOS satellite — the world’s
first commercial high-resolution commercial imaging satellite. IKONOS
satellite imagery provides access to any location on the earth’s surface every
one to two days and collects up to 200,000 square kilometers of imagery per
day. As of January there are more than 40 million square kilometers of
imagery in the IKONOS digital archive.

For the first three years, the contract has a minimum value of
$120 million with a five-year ceiling of $500 million. The contract
performance period is five years.

“This Clearview contract is a new approach to the procurement of
commercial satellite imagery,” said Lt. Gen. (ret) James Clapper, director of
NIMA. “The contract enables NIMA to utilize commercial satellite imagery
across a broad spectrum of geospatial applications.”

Map accurate, high-resolution imagery from the IKONOS satellite has been
used to develop up-to-date maps for military users, support intelligence
activities, military planning and operations, damage assessments, public
diplomacy and humanitarian assistance. Space Imaging was the only company to
supply high-resolution satellite imagery to NIMA during the early months of
Operation Enduring Freedom. The imagery was used to help build databases of
the region to support quick turnaround requests for new geospatial products.

“With this contract, Space Imaging has accomplished another milestone that
closes our business case. The establishment of a multi-year, anchor agreement
with U.S. national security customers is a significant event for our investors
and our employees,” said John Copple, chairman and CEO of Space Imaging.
“Space Imaging is proud to have an operational role in ensuring that our
national and homeland security interests are served through the reliable
supply of IKONOS geospatial products and services.”

“This contract reflects a change in our customer relationship with NIMA,”
added Joe Dodd, Space Imaging’s vice president of Federal Alliances.
“Commercial imagery has now become an operational element of the nation’s
imagery intelligence architecture. We are excited to help meet the nation’s
geospatial intelligence requirements with IKONOS and our future
high-resolution imaging satellites.”

About Space Imaging

Space Imaging is a leading supplier of visual information products and
services derived from space imagery and aerial photography. The company
launched the world’s first high-resolution, commercial Earth imaging
satellite, IKONOS(TM), on Sept. 24, 1999. Other products are produced from
the Indian Remote Sensing satellites, the U.S. Landsat satellites and Canada’s
RADARSAT. Space Imaging also delivers aerial-derived imagery products
collected by its own Digital Airborne Imaging System (DAIS-1(TM)). For more
information about Space Imaging visit its web site at www.spaceimaging.com .

SpaceRef staff editor.