GeoEye, Inc. (Nasdaq: GEOY) has marked the one-year launch anniversary of GeoEye-1, the commercial Earth-imaging satellite. The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California on September 6, 2008. In celebration of this Sept. 6 anniversary, GeoEye tasked the GeoEye-1 satellite to collect a half-meter resolution image of Madrid, Spain on Sept. 7. The full high-resolution image is featured on GeoEye's corporate home page at: www.geoeye.com, under "Featured Satellite Imagery," along with other images including the 2009 Burning Man Festival, Black Rock Desert, Nevada; Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe; construction of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic venues, British Colombia; and San Francisco Bay in northern California. Since its launch, GeoEye-1 has imaged every continent in the world and chronicled several noteworthy events this year. In April, GeoEye-1 photographed a North Korean missile facility just moments before the launch of a long-range missile. The GeoEye-1 satellite has collected approximately 54 million square kilometers of imagery and taken over 200,000 images since its launch.

This satellite image of the Royal Palace of Madrid, Spain was taken from 423 miles in space by the GeoEye-1 satellite on Sept. 7, 2009. The image shows The Sabatini and Royal Gardens and the Teatro Real Opera house beyond the Oriente Square to the east. Royal Palace of Madrid is the largest in Western Europe with 2,800 rooms. The GeoEye-1 satellite is owned and operated by GeoEye, Inc. and is the world's highest resolution commercial Earth imaging satellite. (PRNewsFoto/GeoEye, Inc.)