DigitalGlobe has garnered enough commercial imaging contracts to launch a second WorldView satellite in 2008, the Longmont-based company revealed Tuesday.
The new satellites, together with DigitalGlobe’s existing QuickBird satellite, will allow the company to collect – and sell – more than 10 times the amount of imagery of any current commercial satellite system.
Privately held DigitalGlobe refused to say how much the second WorldView satellite will cost. However, one analyst put the price of the camera – the heart of the satellite – and a second launch at a possible $150 million.
“At some point they’re going to have something like $1 billion worth of assets in orbit,” said the analyst, Edward Jurkevics of Chesapeake Analytics in Arlington, Va.
DigitalGlobe produces high-resolution images of Earth taken by satellite. It sells imagery of everything from farmland to disaster zones – such as the Gulf Coast – to government agencies and commercial customers, including Marathon Oil Corp. and The Nature Conservancy.
DigitalGlobe has been building the cameras for both WorldView satellites for more than a year and had always considered launching two, DigitalGlobe spokesman Chuck Herring said.
DigitalGlobe has been working with customers to book contracts that would allow it to complete the WorldView II satellite, Herring said. The company is negotiating terms with Ball Aerospace, a division of Broomfield’s Ball Corp., to construct the second WorldView satellite. Ball has been working since 2003 with DigitalGlobe on WorldView I, to be launched next year.
DigitalGlobe’s investors include Ball Aerospace, Hitachi Ltd., Morgan Stanley and Telespazio SPA/Eurimage Investment.
About 110 of DigitalGlobe’s approximately 340 employees work primarily on the WorldView projects. There are no plans to add employees for WorldView II, Herring said.
QuickBird is expected to be in orbit until late 2009.
The WorldView I satellite was financed through a $500 million government contract awarded in 2003. It will have a black-and-white imaging system.
The satellite announced Tuesday will have black-and- white and color resolution – to perform precise detection of changes in landscapes and mapping.
More satellites will contribute to a robust commercial satellite industry, said Dave Burpee, a spokesman for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which awarded the NextView contract to DigitalGlobe. It means the agency has more satellites from which it can purchase images, he said.
A DigitalGlobe competitor, Thornton-based Space Imaging, announced in September that it would sell its assets to a third satellite-imaging player, Orbimage Holdings Inc. in Dulles, Va., for $58.5 million. The Thornton facility will remain in operation.
Space Imaging has a high-resolution satellite called Ikonos in orbit. Orbimage has in orbit a high-resolution satellite called OrbView-3. The company is building another satellite, OrbView-5, scheduled to be launched in 2007.
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-820-1488 or kyamanouchi@denverpost.com.
