GeoEye launches high-resolution satellite

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - GeoEye Inc (GEOY.O) said it successfully launched into space on Saturday its new GeoEye-1 satellite, which will provide the U.S. government, Google (GOOG.O) Earth users and others the highest-resolution commercial color satellite imagery on the market.

"It was a picture-perfect launch and we've now gotten confirmation that ... we have commanded the satellite and it has responded," GeoEye Chief Executive Matthew O'Connell told Reuters in a telephone interview from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where the satellite was launched at 11:50 a.m. PDT (2:50 p.m. EDT).

"Everybody is now slapping high fives," he said, adding that it would take 30 to 45 days before the company calibrates the camera aboard the satellite and receives imagery.

GeoEye-1 will be able to capture images at .41 meters (16 inches) resolution in black and white and 1.65 meters (5.5 feet) in color, but under current government rules, the company can only offer the public half-meter (1.64 feet) images.

The satellite will take digital images of the Earth from 423 miles and moving at a speed of about 4 1/2 miles per second.

O'Connell said the $502 million satellite, built partly with money from the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, would "open up a lot of opportunities" for the GeoEye, and capped four years of work on the spacecraft.

On hand to watch Saturday's launch of the satellite -- shot into space by a Delta II rocket emblazoned with Google's logo among others -- were Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google spokesman Brian O'Shaughnessy said.

GeoEye's other satellites provide images to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, but Google will be its only online-search mapping customer.