The Lockheed Martin team developing GeoEye's next-generation, high-resolution commercial Earth-imaging satellite system known as GeoEye-2, has successfully completed on-schedule a System Requirements Review (SRR), an important program milestone that precedes the Preliminary Design Review.

With launch scheduled to support start of operations in 2013, Lockheed Martin is developing GeoEye-2 under a fixed price contract to support the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's (NGA) EnhancedView commercial imagery program. GeoEye was awarded an EnhancedView contract worth up to $3.8 billion on Aug. 6, 2010.

EnhancedView is designed to provide critical geospatial situational awareness and global security information to intelligence analysts, war fighters and decision makers. GeoEye's commercial users will also benefit from access to imagery from GeoEye-2.

The successful SRR verified the maturity of Lockheed Martin's system design for meeting the key user requirements and the team's readiness to proceed with the Preliminary Design Review phase scheduled for completion later this year.

"This important review effectively demonstrated the advanced state of our GeoEye-2 design and how we can significantly improve the quality and quantity of commercial space-based imagery for our customer," said Allen Anderson, Lockheed Martin's GeoEye-2 program director.

"We look forward to rapidly fielding this critical capability and achieving mission success on this important program."

Bill Schuster, GeoEye's chief operating officer, commented, "We are pleased to again be partnering with Lockheed Martin to leverage their 50-year heritage of building advanced satellite imaging systems. Lockheed Martin and their subcontractors are assembling a best-in-class team to build and launch GeoEye-2 so we can meet all of our requirements under the EnhancedView program."

Lockheed Martin Space Systems, a world leader in the most advanced space-based systems for government and commercial customers, is under contract to deliver GeoEye-2 and the associated command and control system. The spacecraft will feature a new high-resolution ITT camera that has been in development for more than two years.

Lockheed Martin designed and built the world's first commercial, high-resolution, Earth-imaging satellite, IKONOS, which has been providing 0.82-meter ground resolution imagery to GeoEye's customers around the globe for more than a decade.