The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) certified the GeoEye-1 satellite for meeting standards, GeoEye Inc. announced.
That satellite now provides sub-half-meter ground resolution satellite imagery to NGA.
This means GeoEye-1 is fully commissioned, so the company can begin recognizing revenue of $12.5 million per month under a service level agreement signed with NGA in December. Deliveries to NGA begin today.
The NextView program is designed to ensure that the NGA has access to commercial imagery to provide timely, relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence.
GeoEye won its $500-million NextView contract in September 2004 and was able to build and launch GeoEye-1 within four years of contract award, with no cost overruns, according to the company.
The prime contractor for GeoEye-1 is General Dynamics Corp. [GD] unit Advanced Information Systems. The satellite’s imaging system was built by ITT Corp. [ITT].