Effective immediately, DigitalGlobe will be permitted to offer customers the highest resolution imagery available from their current constellation. Additionally, the updated approvals will permit DigitalGlobe to sell imagery to all of its customers at up to 0.25m panchromatic and 1.0m multispectral ground sample distance (GSD) beginning six months after its next satellite WorldView-3 is operational. WorldView-3 is scheduled to launch, August 13 or 14, 2014 from Vandenberg Air Force base.
With the launch of WorldView-3, the DigitalGlobe constellation will set a new technological bar for commercial satellite imagery, offering customers the highest available resolution, revisit rate, capacity, and spectral diversity. The company currently operates a fleet of five high-resolution earth imaging satellites. Two of those satellites -- GeoEye-1 and WorldView-2 -- collect imagery sharper than 0.50m, and all customers will have access to that imagery at the highest native resolution. WorldView-3 will provide even higher resolution at 0.31m, and the GeoEye-2 satellite, which is substantially complete, will capture similarly sharp images when it is launched to replace a satellite currently in service or as an expansion to the constellation once warranted by market demand.
"We are very pleased and appreciative that the U.S. Department of Commerce under the leadership of Secretary Penny Pritzker, with support from the U.S. Departments of Defense and State and the Intelligence Community, has made this forward-leaning change to our nation's policy that will fuel innovation, create new high-tech jobs, and advance the nation's commanding lead in this strategically important industry," said Jeffrey R. Tarr, DigitalGlobe CEO. "Our customers will immediately realize the benefits of this updated regulation, as for the first time, we will be able to make our very best imagery available to the commercial market. As a result of this policy update and the forthcoming addition of WorldView-3 to our constellation, DigitalGlobe will further differentiate itself from foreign competition and expand our addressable market."
Additionally, DigitalGlobe announced today that it plans to shift the WorldView-1 satellite into a different orbit, in which it will image the earth in the afternoon local time each day. This shift will optimize the DigitalGlobe constellation to monitor changes on the earth at various times during the day. Customers will be able to image a particular area with multiple satellites in the morning and again with WorldView-1 in the afternoon thus providing consistent views of Earth over much of the day.
"As our constellation has grown, we have pioneered new capabilities for satellite imaging in every successive generation to deliver new and unique value to our customers in the growing and dynamic geospatial market. The combination of additional spectral bands, higher resolution products, morning and afternoon collection times, and increased collection capacity all enable DigitalGlobe to provide its customers with dramatically more information in every image collected," said Walter Scott, DigitalGlobe's founder and Chief Technology Officer.
DigitalGlobe supports customers' critical decisions with the highest resolution commercial satellite imagery available anywhere. To see visual examples of how better resolution can enable better decision making for Civil Governments, Location Based Services and Energy, visit http://www.digitalglobe.com/imagery-completeness#completeness-as-a-component-of-quality.
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Feature IKONOS QuickBird WorldView-1 GeoEye-1
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Spectral
characteristics Pan + 4 MS Pan + 4 MS Pan Pan + 4 MS
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Panchromatic resolution
(nadir) 0.82 m 0.55 m 0.50 m 0.41 m
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Multispectral
resolution (nadir) 3.28 m 2.20 m N/A 1.64 m
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Accuracy specification
(nadir) 9 m CE90 23 m CE90 4 m CE90 3 m CE90
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Onboard storage 80 Gbits 128 Gbits 2199 Gbits 1000 Gbits
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Collection capacity 150,000 160,000 1,500,000 350,000
km2/day km2/day km2/day km2/day
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Launch timing 1999 2001 2007 2008
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Feature GeoEye-2
WorldView-2 WorldView-3 (subject to
change)
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Spectral Pan + 8 MS +
characteristics Pan + 8 MS 8 SWIR Pan + 4 MS
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Panchromatic resolution
(nadir) 0.46 m 0.31 m 0.31 m
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Multispectral
resolution (nadir) 1.84 m 1.24 m 1.24 m
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Accuracy specification
(nadir) 3.5 m CE90 3.5 m CE90 3.5 m CE90
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Onboard storage 2199 Gbits 2199 Gbits 3000 Gbits
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Collection capacity 1,200,000 680,000 680,000
km2/day km2/day km2/day
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Launch timing 2009 2014 TBD
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About DigitalGlobe
DigitalGlobe is a leading provider of commercial high-resolution earth observation and advanced geospatial solutions that help decision makers better understand our changing planet in order to save lives, resources and time. Sourced from the world's leading constellation, our imagery solutions deliver unmatched coverage and capacity to meet our customers' most demanding mission requirements. Each day customers in defense and intelligence, public safety, civil agencies, map making and analysis, environmental monitoring, oil and gas exploration, infrastructure management, navigation technology, and providers of location-based services depend on DigitalGlobe data, information, technology and expertise to gain actionable insight.
Safe Harbor Statement
Certain statements contained herein and in other of our reports, filings, and public announcements may contain or incorporate forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future financial performance. We generally identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "could," "intends," "target," "projects," "contemplates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," "continue" or "looks forward to" or the negative of these terms or other similar words, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words.
Any forward-looking statements are based upon our historical performance and on our current plans, estimates and expectations. The inclusion of this forward-looking information should not be regarded as a representation by us that the future plans, estimates or expectations will be achieved. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties and assumptions. A number of important factors could cause our actual results or performance to differ materially from those indicated by such forward looking statements, including: the loss, reduction or change in terms of any of our primary contracts or decisions by customers not to exercise renewal options; the availability of government funding for our products and services both domestically and internationally; changes in government and customer priorities and requirements (including cost-cutting initiatives, the potential deferral of awards, terminations or reduction of expenditures to respond to the priorities of Congressand the administration, or budgetary cuts resulting from Congressional committee recommendations or automatic sequestration under the Budget Control Act of 2011); the risk that U.S. government sanctions against specified companies and individuals in Russia may limit our ability to conduct business with potential or existing customers; the risk that the anticipated benefits and synergies from the strategic combination of the company and GeoEye, Inc. cannot be fully realized or may take longer to realize than expected; the outcome of pending or threatened litigation; the loss or impairment of any of our satellites; delays in the construction and launch of any of our satellites or our ability to achieve and maintain full operational capacity of all our satellites; delays in implementation of planned ground system and infrastructure enhancements; loss or damage to the content contained in our imagery archives; interruption or failure of our ground system and other infrastructure, decrease in demand for our imagery products and services; increased competition, including possibly from companies with substantial financial and other resources and services, that may reduce our market share or cause us to lower our prices; our inability to fully integrate acquisitions or to achieve planned synergies; changes in satellite imaging technology; our failure to obtain or maintain required regulatory approvals and licenses; changes in U.S. or foreign law or regulation that may limit our ability to distribute our imagery products and services; the costs associated with being a public company; and other important factors, all as described more fully in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including our Annual Report on Form 10 K.
We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which the statement is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any of these forward looking statements.