West Indian Space Changes Name to ImageSat, Announces Product Offerings

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West Indian Space Changes Name To ImageSat, Announces Product Offerings

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West Indian Space has changed its name to ImageSat International. The company continues to be incorporated in the Netherlands Antilles. ImageSat is a holding company owned by Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd. (IAI), Lod, Israel, (44%), Electro-Optics Industries Ltd. (El-Op), Rehovot, Israel, (12%), and Core Software Technologies, Pasadena, CA (44%). El-Op is now part of Elbit Systems Ltd., Haifa, Israel. Moshe Bar-Lev, former president of West Indian Space will remain as president of ImageSat. ImageSat may have an Initial Public Offering next year. ImageSat does not believe it is subject to U.S. jurisdiction regarding export licenses. The only license the company believes that it needs is from Israel, where the satellites are being produced.

The satellite imagery and data will be offered to commercial customers, government agencies and private individuals. Three levels of service will be provided. The first level of services, known as Satellite Operating Partners (SOP), will provide dedicated regional coverage for the exclusive use by regional customers, usually governmental agencies. Under an SOP agreement customers will receive S-band uplinks that provide them with complete control of the satellite’s imaging activities over the geographic footprint of their ground receiving station. SOP customers will own their local archive of collected imagery. The second level, known as Priority Acquisition Service will provide high-priority tasking of satellites over specific areas covered by the customer’s ground receiving station. ImageSat will operate the satellites on behalf of the customer on a confidential basis. The third level of service, known as the Acquisition, Archiving and Distribution program will allow customers to purchase images from ground station operators, who receive and distribute EROS data within their particular footprint area. This will not require an annual access fee; and ground station operators do not take title to the data, but are granted distribution rights under the terms of their license agreement with ImageSat.

The company plans to launch two satellites of the EROS A-series and six EROS B-series satellites. The A-series spacecraft will orbit at 480 km, and provide ground resolutions of 1.8 m. The B-series spacecraft will be orbit at 600 km, having a ground resolution of .82 m. The EROS satellites are derived from Israel’s Ofeq 3 surveillance satellite. EROS A1 is scheduled to fly on a Russian Start launcher in October. IAI is building the satellites and El-Op is providing the imaging payload. ImageSat will own and operate the Earth Remote-sensing Observation Satellite (EROS) constellation. The company will maintain its central archives for imagery and its main distribution network in Cyprus.

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August 14, 2000