"We're proud to be on the Space Imaging team for this historic mission," said Peter Kujawski, president of Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems. "What makes IKONOS so unique is that no one has ever developed a spacecraft for commercial use that can image objects on the ground as small as one meter. To get an appreciation of this technological achievement, imagine someone in Los Angeles taking a camera lens and zooming in to a precise location, enabling the person to distinguish between a car and a truck on the Golden Gate Bridge."

"This technology will prove invaluable for applications ranging from earthquake disaster response to precision farming, accurate mapping, and urban planning," said Tom Dougherty, director of low-earth orbit satellite programs for Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems. "IKONOS represents a quantum leap in commercially available technology that will be of great benefit to Space Imaging's customers worldwide."

IKONOS is the latest in a long heritage of Lockheed Martin's remote sensing satellite technology for national security applications that began with the Corona program in the 1950s. The company's satellites have been used for military and civil government weather monitoring as well, including the TIROS series of satellites and spacecraft for the DMSP program; the Earth Observing System Terra satellite to launch later this year; and Space Based Infrared System High for early detection of missile launches.

IKONOS represents the best in commercial remote sensing technology, providing high-resolution black-and-white and multispectral digital pictures and other imagery. Multispectral images reveal information that cannot be seen with the naked eye, such as chlorophyll content, chemical composition, surface water penetration and the presence of oil leached from the seabed. Customers will be able to combine panchromatic and multispectral images to produce images that offer the advantages of both techniques.

Using overlay techniques, in which pictures are combined with near-infrared images or other geographic information, customers can see interpretive geological images that show areas of vegetation combined with terrain features. Combined with other geographic information and three-dimensional visualization models, customers can achieve a more complete understanding of the earth's changing features to make better business decisions. Space Imaging will make the imagery from IKONOS available 60-90 days after the satellite checks out on-orbit.

The primary payload of the IKONOS satellite is a digital imaging sensor capable of collecting both panchromatic images at a resolution of one meter, and multispectral images with a resolution of four meters.

Because the satellite transmits digital imagery, the imagery can be processed and disseminated very quickly, rendering it useful for time-critical applications.

The satellite's 680-kilometer altitude and speed of nearly seven kilometers per second give it a wide field of view and the ability to capture large quantities of data very quickly. For example, it can image an 11-kilometer-wide strip from central Canada to Mexico City in about 10 minutes.

In addition to building the IKONOS earth-imaging satellite, Lockheed Martin also provides Space Imaging the launch vehicle and ground stations. Lockheed Martin, under contract to Space Imaging, will maintain the satellite and provides support for on-orbit operations.