Orbimage Ramps Up Operations for 2004 and Expands Staff

ORBIMAGE Inc. announced that it has expanded its staff by approximately 50 per cent to support commercial operations of OrbView-3, its first high-resolution earth observation satellite, and that the company’s regional distributor partner in Japan, NTT Data Corporation, has begun routine commercial operations.
In addition to ORBIMAGE’s two ground stations, in its Dulles headquarters and Point Barrow, Alaska, NTT Data Corporation now operates a ground station in Yorii, Japan to receive and process imagery from OrbView-3 and has begun distributing OrbView-3 imagery products under a long term agreement with ORBIMAGE. NTT Data began receiving OrbView-3 imagery in December. In addition, as announced yesterday in a separate press release, the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) awarded ORBIMAGE a contract to deliver OrbView-3 imagery and related products under the ClearView program.
Since OrbView-3’s launch in June, the company has expanded its staff by approximately 50 per cent, as previously planned. In addition to expansion of its staff in Operations, the company hired William Warren as General Counsel after emerging from Chapter 11 on 31 December, 2003. Mr. Warren joins ORBIMAGE after working at Latham & Watkins LLP, where he spent considerable time representing ORBIMAGE in its capital restructuring and general corporate matters.