Jay Clemens
DigitalGlobe and two organizations in Saudi Arabia have formed a joint venture to build small satellites intended to regularly capture images of different areas around the world, Reuters reported Sunday.
DigitalGlobe CEO Jeffrey Tarr said the company would integrate its satellites, ground infrastructure and processing technology into the project in order to facilitate the accuracy of collected images, Andrea Shalal reports.
The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology will work to develop and launch at least six small satellites by early 2019 to collect imagery with 80 centimeters of resolution and complement DigitalGlobe’s 30-cm resolution imagery, according to the report.
The state-backed organization will also split the rights to the imaging capacity for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors with DigitalGlobe, while the U.S. company will own 100 percent of the capacity outside the region, Reuters reports.
TAQNIA Space, a subsidiary of Saudi Technology Investment and Development, will market 50 percent of the capacity in the Middle East and DigitalGlobe will oversee marketing for the other half as well as 100 percent of the capacity in the rest of the world, the report added.
