Contract Valued at $7.7 Million Supports EC Institute’s High-Resolution Data Needs
Longmont, Colo. – May 25, 2006 – DigitalGlobe’s European business partner, Italy-based Eurimage, has entered into a contract with the European Commission (EC)’s Joint Research Center to supply worldwide satellite imagery over a four-year period. The DigitalGlobe portion of the contract is valued at $7.7 million USD (6 million Euro) and will support all EC institutions, services and agencies.
The EC’s Joint Research Center will use DigitalGlobe’s 60-centimeter resolution QuickBird data primarily to support its Control with Remote Sensing (CwRS) campaign, which is focused on supporting the EC’s Common Agricultural Policy for all 25 member countries. The reform is intended to improve agriculture management and control systems, and to prevent agricultural subsidy irregularities with the help of remote sensing, geographic information systems and other technologies.
Specifically, high-resolution remote sensing imagery will be used in risk analysis and fraud detection. It will allow officers from the member states and the EC to control farmers’ subsidy requests by determining crop parcels. Through better monitoring of agricultural assets, the EC can ensure that its subsidies are distributed more quickly, efficiently, fairly and reliably.
In addition to supporting the CwRS campaign, DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird imagery will meet the EC’s increasing requirements in support of security and humanitarian aid programs.
Imagery from DigitalGlobe’s WorldView system, scheduled to launch in mid-2007, will also be used to support this contract. Eurimage has also been contracted to supply data from the U.S. Landsat satellite.
According to Marcello Maranesi, Eurimage’s managing director, “This contract represents Eurimage’s ongoing commitment to the EC for a variety of programs and needs, which we have supported since 1990. We are proud to have played an instrumental role in providing imagery to the EC during such emergencies as the Southeast Asian tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake. This experience, combined with our involvement in the 2004 and 2005 CwRS campaigns, have been valuable in improving our products and services to meet the earth observation market’s expectations and our clients’ needs.”
“Since the start of CwRS in 2003, very high-resolution data has become the major data source for area-based subsidies,” said Jacques Delincé, unit head, Agriculture and Fisheries, Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen at the EC’s Joint Research Center. “The QuickBird sensor is imaging a significant portion of the areas concerned, and operates at a very high success rate. We are pleased to have signed this second Framework Supply Contract with Eurimage concerning QuickBird data, and hope to continue in close collaboration until 2009.”
About Eurimage S.p.A.
Headquartered in Rome, Italy, Eurimage is a multi-mission satellite data provider. Products include optical (QuickBird, Landsat, IRS, ASTER) and radar (ERS, Envisat, Radarsat) data, offering a variety of mission and sensor types to meet the widest range of user needs. Eurimage is the exclusive distributor of data from the highest resolution mission, DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird, in Europe and the Mediterranean basin. As the European Space Agency’s cost-sharing partner, Eurimage has global distribution rights for Landsat 1-5 and 7 data. It is also an official ESA commercial distributor with a world-wide distribution license for both ERS and ENVISAT data through the EMMA Consortium, in which Eurimage is the Master Distributor. Eurimage is a Finmeccanica Company. Eurimage’s shareholders are Telespazio (Italy) and EADS Astrium (Germany).
About DigitalGlobe
Longmont, Colo.-based DigitalGlobe (www.digitalglobe.com) is the clear leader in the global commercial Earth imagery and geospatial information market. The company’s technical superiority and innovation, unparalleled commitment to customer service, extensive business partner network and open systems philosophy make DigitalGlobe the preferred supplier of imagery products to government and commercial markets. DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird satellite is the world’s highest resolution commercial imaging system. The company’s next-generation WorldView I is scheduled to launch in mid-2007, and WorldView II is anticipated to launch in 2008, pending finalization of customer contracts. The company’s updated and growing ImageLibrary contains over one hundred million square kilometers of global imagery for countless mapping and planning needs.
