News Room

Longmont, Colo., September 19, 2008 - DigitalGlobe®, a leading provider of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery and geospatial information products, today applauded this week’s introduction of legislation designed to boost the U.S. Government’s commercial space advocacy activities.  H.R.6935 and S.3504 were submitted simultaneously by Colorado Congressman Mark Udall (D-CO) and Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO), respectively.  Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) also co-sponsored the legislation. 

H.R.6935 and S.3504 would reauthorize the Office of Space Commercialization (OSC), and focus its role on advocacy for a robust and internationally competitive U.S. commercial space industry.  They also propose to rename the agency “The Office of Space Commerce” to better reflect the office’s lead role in implementing U.S. space commerce policies.

“The Office of Space Commercialization is an important voice for companies such as DigitalGlobe in working with the U.S. Government both as a regulator and as a customer,” said Jill Smith, chairman and CEO of DigitalGlobe.  “I commend the leadership of Colorado’s Senator Salazar and Congressman Udall and their foresight in recognizing the need to reauthorize this important office and bolster its responsibilities.  Having a single office serve as the lead agent for space commerce activities within the Department of Commerce will help ensure implementation of the recent series of commercial space and remote sensing policies and speed the removal of institutional impediments to future market growth.”

The legislation will update the Office’s functions to implement U.S. national space policies supporting space commerce. It also will recognize the office’s expanding role in promoting geospatial technologies such as space-based commercial remote sensing imagery provided by DigitalGlobe.

About DigitalGlobe
Longmont, Colorado-based DigitalGlobe (http://www.digitalglobe.com) is a leading global content provider of high-resolution world imagery solutions. Sourced from our own advanced satellite constellation and aerial network, our imagery solutions deliver real world perspective to governments, businesses, technology developers and humanitarian associations worldwide.  The company’s imagery solutions consist of one of the world’s largest image libraries, growing at a rate of up to 1 million square kilometers per day and distributed and accessed through online search and retrieval, production ready image layers, development tool-kits for internet enabled applications and devices, and software solutions for integration with GIS products and services. DigitalGlobe currently operates a high-resolution commercial satellite constellation with QuickBird and the first of two next-generation satellites, WorldView-1.  The company plans to launch its second next-generation satellite, WorldView-2, in the third quarter of 2009.
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