[LOGO DIGITALGLOBE] Press Release
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1900 Pike Road - Longmont, Colorado USA 80501-6700 - Tel: 303. 682. 3800 -
Fax: 303. 682. 3848 - www.digitalglobe.com
Media Contact
Chuck Herring
Director of Marketing Communications
(303) 682-3820
cherring@digitalglobe.com
800.496.1225 (Customer Service line for publication)
For Immediate Release
DigitalGlobe's QuickBird Imagery is
Clearly the Best
World's Highest Resolution Commercial Imaging Satellite Shows
Unprecedented Clarity
LONGMONT, Colorado, December 17, 2001, DigitalGlobe/(TM)/ announced
today the release of the first imagery from the world's highest
resolution commercial imaging satellite, QuickBird. The images of
Antarctica, Bangkok, and Washington D.C. are downloadable from the
DigitalGlobe (www.digitalglobe.com) website, (click on the red
--------------------
QuickBird First Images link). The images show details never before
seen from a commercial imaging satellite. The suite of imagery
represents QuickBird's capabilities such as resolution, clarity,
spectral qualities, and global coverage. QuickBird, manufactured by
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., was successfully launched on
October 18, 2001, from Vandenberg AFB in California on a Boeing Delta
II. As the highest-resolution commercial satellite in operation,
QuickBird circles the Earth in a 450-km (280-mile), 98-degree
sun-synchronous orbit, which provides consistent revisit times
year-round. In addition to providing the highest-resolution imagery,
QuickBird also collects an industry leading 16.5-kilometer (10.3-mile)
imagery swath.
The Bangkok, Thailand image, a 61-centimeter (2-foot) panchromatic
(black and white) image, shows the crisp detail captured by QuickBird.
The McMurdo Bay, Antarctica image, a 2.44-meter (9-foot) multispectral
(color) scene, showcases the spectral qualities of QuickBird. The
Washington D.C. image, a 61-centimeter natural color scene, represents
the clarity, sharpness, and spectral qualities of products offered by
DigitalGlobe.
"To say that we are pleased with the quality of the QuickBird imagery
is an understatement! We are thrilled," stated Herb Satterlee,
president and chief executive officer of DigitalGlobe. "The consistent
feedback from our customers who have seen the imagery is that we have
taken the commercial satellite imaging industry to a new level. We now
provide the clearest imagery from a commercial imaging satellite,
which ensures our customers' expectations are exceeded by the quality
of the product. Applications for this imagery include detailed
mapping, resource management, urban planning, telecommunications, and
agriculture with new markets and applications yet to be developed."
The satellite has progressed halfway through the verification and
calibration period. Just as DigitalGlobe has been methodical in
publicly releasing the first imagery from QuickBird, DigitalGlobe
plans to begin operations in a strategically phased approach to ensure
our customers' experience with DigitalGlobe is exceptional. In the
first quarter of 2002, DigitalGlobe plans to begin initial operations
with select customers including master distributors in Europe
(Eurimage) and Asia (Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd.).
DigitalGlobe will open access to its entire worldwide reseller network
beginning in the second quarter and begin full commercial operations
in July of 2002.
About DigitalGlobe: www.digitalglobe.com
--------------------
DigitalGlobe is an imagery and information company located in
Longmont, Colorado. DigitalGlobe is establishing a market leadership
position by providing the highest-resolution satellite imagery product
offering, the greatest collection capacity, and the largest image size
commercially available. Currently, there are no plans to launch a
comparable commercial satellite until at least 2004. The company
offers geographic information products through its digitalglobe.com
on-line imagery store, an Internet-based global archive of geographic
information available to commercial businesses.
####
EXHIBIT 99.1