The high-resolution commercial Earth-imaging satellite known as GeoEye-2 has completed its system requirements review, Lockheed Martin announced Tuesday. The terrestrial 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,” said Allen Anderson, Lockheed’s GeoEye-2 program director. Lockheed Martin is building the GeoEye-2 spacecraft for a company actually called GeoEye that’s headquartered in Dulles, Va. On Aug. 6, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency awarded GeoEye a contract worth up to $3.8 billion, under the agency’s new EnhancedView program. Under the terms of the deal, the company will provide the US intelligence community and Defense Department with “critical geospatial situational awareness and global security information” through its fleet of several imagery satellites. This should include Geo-Eye-2, which is projected for launch in late 2012.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.