GA is just returning from World Satellite Business Week and the Earth Orbit meetings in Paris, and we've learned that geospatial intelligence and orbital imaging is really a geopolitical issue. While countries talk cooperation, make no mistake that the space satellite business is highly focused and highly competitive.

Soon there will be over 1,200 satellites orbiting earth according to EuroConsult. They are taking pictures, sharing intel, both in low-earth orbit and outerspace. But it’s not really the images that matter these days, it’s the data. Whether it be for emergency response to disasters, protecting the warfighter, or just for your own GPS, information services is the new wave. Satellite companies are now becoming informational service providers.

The commercial side of imagery is becoming an ever more important component for agriculture, for university research and for studying environmental impact.

Our client, GeoEye, is a real success story. In the past seven years, it’s grown from 30 employees to 560. When two space tech companies were merged to form GeoEye, there was zero in the bank and $10 million in revenue. Today, there is $300 million revenue with a $1 billion market capitalization. GeoEye now trades on the NASDAQ.

GeoEye just won the Satellite Operator of the Year for Earth Observation. JP Morgan invested $400 million early in the game and enjoyed a double digit returns. Lockheed was awarded the contract to assist in building a new GeoEye-2 satellite as well as launch it on an Atlas Rocket and says it is “proud to partner.”

But the coup de grace is this: GeoEye has rocketed from a mid-sized business to a new player in world satellites with a $3.8 billion contract win. It will provide EnhancedView images from space to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The NGA contract is a 10-year deal and part of the largest award in NGA history. It also permits GeoEye to continue to offer its commercial customers better space imagery.

We at Gibraltar are so pleased to partner with GeoEye, too. They even took an enhanced image (down to one-meter resolution) of the Rock of Gibraltar for our front lobby. Pretty cool.