Space

Techmex / Space Imaging

On 07 May 2004 Space Imaging, a provider of Earth imagery and related services to commercial and government markets, announced that it has signed an agreement with the Satellite Center for Regional Operations (SCOR), a commercial arm of the Polish government located in Warsaw, Poland, to establish a ground station capable of tasking, collection, processing, exploitation, and archiving of high-resolution IKONOS satellite imagery data for the Polish Ministry of Defense. The ground station will be operated by SCOR with support from the Polish Military Property Agency and Techmex, a commercial computer and technology company in Poland. SCOR was expected to begin IKONOS satellite imaging operations within a few months.

The Polish regional operations center (ROC) including the receiving antenna and processing facility will be located in Komorow, Poland. As IKONOS passes through a 4,600-km diameter communications circle centered on the ground station, SCOR will be able to autonomously task the IKONOS satellite and directly downlink imagery into a 5.4-meter receiving antenna. This provides Poland, one of the European Union's newest members, with immediate access to high-quality satellite imagery.

The establishment of a Polish ROC will be a valuable vehicle for the Polish government and associated agencies to fulfill their Earth imagery and geospatial product needs. Space Imaging's International Alliance Program offerings, combined with Space Imaging's ever-expanding worldwide access to multiple satellite systems, ensures customers receive the most-efficient, reliable service possible with maximum exposure in their respective regions. Investing in this ROC gives Poland a chance to accelerate its infrastructure development as it is an indispensable condition to creating a highly competitive economy.

Geospatial information derived from satellite imagery is ideal to meet many of the pressing agricultural and forestry mapping, infrastructure planning and zoning, urbanization, national security, and environmental issues confronting governments today. Other markets that will benefit from the superior image quality, metric accuracy, turnaround time, and collection capacity of the IKONOS system include, telecommunications, airport and harbor management, insurance and risk management, disaster assessment, humanitarian relief operations and agriculture. For example, Techmex is currently producing maps from satellite imagery under an order received from the Polish state-owned agency for agriculture restructuring and modernization called ARiMR. "We have streamlined our global business partnership model, and to date we have sold more than a dozen ground stations internationally, all with autonomous control and tasking capabilities," said Conrad Mueller, vice president of International Sales. "SCOR will provide the foundation for comprehensive and continual remote sensing coverage in Poland and is an important addition to our emergent partnership network.