A Boeing-backed
remote-sensing based information service venture, RESOURCE21, L.L.C.,
has been awarded $5 million by NASA to develop business and technical
plans to support the Landsat Earth-observing missions that provide
significant scientific and agricultural data to government and
industry.

RESOURCE21 provides information products and services from satellites
and other imagery sources. Government and commercial markets,
including the agriculture industry, use the data it provides for such
applications as municipal planning, management of land and natural
resources, and crop evaluation. The Boeing Company [NYSE:BA] through
its business unit Boeing Space and Communications (S&C) is a major
owner of RESOURCE21, L.L.C., with members BAE Systems, Farmland
Industries and the Institute for Technology Development. In addition,
Ball Aerospace (BATC), which is developing the RESOURCE21 satellite,
is planning to join the venture.

“This contract represents an excellent opportunity for
RESOURCE21 to provide its quality, low-cost data collection services
in a unique partnership with the government for a historic program
that has and will continue to benefit the global scientific and
agricultural communities,” said Ron Prosser, Boeing Vice
President for Advanced Space & Communications and Chairman of the
Board of RESOURCE21, L.L.C. “RESOURCE21 has a talented and
capable management team that will develop an outstanding business and
technical solution that will support the Landsat program’s long-term
success.”

RESOURCE21 is one of two companies that will receive $5 million each
from NASA to further develop their proposals over the next nine months
of the contract’s formulation phase. After completion of the
formulation phase, one company will be selected to execute the Landsat
Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) implementation phase early next year,
which will include requirements to provide five years of satellite
imagery data.

Working in partnership with NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, the
RESOURCE21/government team will develop applications for information
products as well as a new information collection system. In addition
to traditional users of Landsat data, “the capabilities of this
system have exciting applications to emerging commercial markets,
homeland security efforts, and environmental research,” Prosser
said.

The Landsat (Land Remote-Sensing Satellite) series of Earth-observing
missions has a rich 30-year history. Landsat is a series of satellites
designed to gather data on the Earth’s resources in a regular and
systematic manner. The scientific community, government agencies,
commercial enterprises, educational institutions and private citizens
worldwide use the data collected from those missions for observation
and analysis of land cover and land cover change.

Boeing Space and Communications (S&C), headquartered in Seal Beach,
Calif., is the world’s largest space and communications company. A
unit of The Boeing Company, S&C provides integrated solutions in
launch services, human space flight and exploration, missile defense,
and information and communications. It is NASA’s largest contractor; a
leading provider of space-based communications; the primary systems
integrator for U.S. missile defense; and a leading provider of
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The global enterprise
has customers worldwide and manufacturing operations throughout the
United States and Australia.

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Ann Beach

(562) 797-4222

ann.m.beach@boeing.com