...on September 27th in Beijing ensuring continuity of commercially available high-resolution and large-area services covering China. The agreements concern a New Generation SPOT receiving station, reception of SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 telemetry and the extension of a previous SPOT 5 accord. Through this new agreement, the CEODE, an offshoot of the Chinese Academy of Science, intends to pursue its high-resolution activities while also benefiting from the increased acquisition, daily revisit and quick-response tasking capabilities of the SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 satellites.

As with the previous agreements, BSI (Beijing Spot Image) will supply data acquired in China to all segments of the Earth remote-sensing market. The CEODE will operate the receiving station in Beijing. Astrium Services and the CEODE are longstanding partners. In October 1998, the CEODE and Spot Image S.A created the joint venture BSI, followed in 2001 by a reception and distribution agreement covering data from SPOT 2, SPOT 4 and SPOT 5. With this latest agreement concerning SPOT 6 and SPOT 7, the CEODE is renewing its confidence in Astrium and confirming its collaboration through the BSI joint venture.