DigitalGlobe announced today that on February 1st it commenced initial operations with select customers. DigitalGlobe is conducting a controlled and phased rollout of the company operations that leads to its broad commercial product availability in the third quarter of 2002. In addition, DigitalGlobe has released commercial pricing for QuickBird products.
The first phase now underway includes pre-registered customers including master distributors in Europe (Telespazio/Eurimage) and Asia (Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd.).
Phase two begins in the second quarter with the addition of all DigitalGlobe North American and International resellers. Later this year, the third phase will begin when DigitalGlobe opens for full commercial operations.
“This milestone was reached only through the teamwork of an extraordinary group of people,” stated Herb Satterlee, president and chief executive officer of DigitalGlobe.
“In the last year we have adjusted the mission of QuickBird to provide the highest resolution commercial imagery, successfully launched, calibrated the satellite, and commenced operations. The DigitalGlobe team and our partners have shown what can be accomplished with strong determination and a common goal.”
DigitalGlobe is an imagery and information company located in Longmont, Colorado. DigitalGlobe is poised to provide the highest-resolution satellite imagery products currently available. Currently, there are no plans to launch a comparable commercial satellite until at least 2004.
