GeoEye Inc. (GEOY) is the premier provider of geospatial information for the national security community, commercial customers, and strategic partners to help them better map, measure, and monitor the world. The company is recognized as the industry’s trusted imagery expert for delivering reliable service and the exceptional quality of its imagery products and solutions. In addition, GeoEye operates a number of Earth imaging satellites, mapping aircraft, and an international network of ground stations.

GeoEye recently announced that it will provide imagery from its new $502-million, high-resolution GeoEye-1 satellite to Google Earth and Google Maps after the spacecraft is launched on September 4th. If all goes well with the launch, GeoEye’s new satellite will be the world’s highest -resolution commercial Earth-imaging satellite. The new satellite will offer images at 0.41 meters resolution in black and white and 1.65 meters in color.

GeoEye, which went public in September 2006, has expanded dramatically over the past five years, quadrupling its work force and reporting large revenue and profit increases. The company’s shares have slumped in recent months on the delay in the launch of their GeoEye-1 satellite, which was originally scheduled to be launched in April 2008. GeoEye CEO Matthew O’Connell said that the launch of GeoEye-1 should help spur new US-government orders from the Pentagon and elsewhere. Mr. O’Connell predicted strong growth over the next five years, bolstered by growing commercial and government demand globally for satellite imagery.

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