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Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post. This will be the last official MMNKO (like that acronym?) post before GEOINT 2009. A week from today, we will be reporting live from San Antonio and the anticipation is killing us! For this week’s post we have some big news from the two leading satellite imagery providers, GeoEye and DigitalGlobe, as well as news regarding a heaping of praise for the Intelligence Community from President Obama. Grab that second cup of coffee and scroll down!

Obama Praises the Intelligence Community
Last Week, President Obama praised members of the U.S. intelligence community — saying the community has stopped numerous terrorist attacks and saved countless American lives. Speaking at the National Counterterrorism Center, President Obama referred to several recent high-profile arrests of alleged terrorist plotters in Denver, New York, Illinois and Texas. Great timing for these accolades as we head into the GEOINT symposium next week. We are curious to see if DNI Dennis Blair or other intelligence leaders will bring this up in their keynotes.

GeoEye, Inc. Closes $400-Million Private Placement of 9.625 Percent Senior Secured Notes
GeoEye, Inc. (Nasdaq: GEOY) announced today the closing of its private placement offering (the “Notes
Offering”) of $400 million in aggregate principal amount of 9.625 percent Senior Secured Notes due 2015 (the “Notes”). The Notes were sold at a price equal to 97.262 percent of their face value, with an effective yield of 10.25 percent. The Notes were offered in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A and outside the United States in compliance with Regulation S under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”). Go GeoEye! Read the full press release here. The company first announced this news last week in our exclusive podcast with GeoEye CEO Matt O’Connell.

DigitalGlobe Launches WorldView-2 Imaging Satellite
DigitalGlobe Inc.’s latest satellite, WorldView-2, successfully launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. last week aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket. The Longmont-based company’s satellite blasted off at 12:51 p.m. MDT and, after a little over an hour of flying, successfully deployed and signaled back to ground control from orbit, the company reported. The $283 million satellite is designed to be the most powerful civilian camera taking pictures of the earth’s surface. It’s the third orbiter launched for the 460-employee company. Congrats Digital Globe! Read more here.

ESRI Delivers an Enterprise Platform for Geospatial Intelligence
The GEOINT 2009 Symposium in Texas this month will spotlight the latest geospatial technologies for defense and intelligence, including innovative geographic information system (GIS) software from ESRI. The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation hosts GEOINT, regarded as the country’s premier geospatial intelligence event. This year’s symposium will be held October 18–21 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio. GIS technology gives agencies the ability to select, fuse, and analyze complex intelligence data through a map-driven interface, then use this geospatial knowledge as a basis for making decisions. ESRI’s sales, marketing, and technical staff will demonstrate to national security, defense, and intelligence professionals how their organizations can use ESRI’s suite of ArcGIS software to deliver situational awareness across the enterprise and analyze complex sets of data. Read the full ESRI press release here.

Geosemble Wins DARPA Contract for Satellite Image Data Integration
Geosemble® Technologies, Inc., the leader in embedding data in satellite and aerial imagery, announced today a Phase II development contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that will enable its current GeoXray data integration software to display a greater range of location-specific information. Geosemble’s new DARPA program will build upon the company’s capability for assigning textual keywords to geospatial datasets. Geosemble will focus on expanding its range of information sources beyond text to include video and audio sources, where summarized data is displayed chronologically on an intuitive, user-friendly interface. The system will also have expanded geographic coverage. As part of the program, Geosemble will subcontract to the University of Southern California (USC) for technology development in summarizing text documents. Check out the full press release here, as well as this great CNET article.

Happy Monday! Seven days to GEOINT 2009!

Tags: DigitalGlobe, ESRI, GeoEye, GEOINT, GEOINT 2009, Geosemble, President Obama, San Antonio, United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, USGIF, WorldView-2