Italy’s e-Geos Earth observation satellite services company reported 90 million euros ($113 million) in revenue in 2009 and a 13 percent return on sales — net pretax profit as a percent of net sales — according to Axel Oddone, head of the Rome-based company’s access planning and data-access services.
In a July 1 presentation, Oddone said e-Geos, which is 20 percent owned by the Italian Space Agency and 80 percent by Telespazio of Rome, has grown to 300 employees. The company’s principal product line is radar imagery from Italy’s Cosmo-SkyMed satellite constellation. Three Cosmo-SkyMed satellites have been placed into low Earth orbit since June 2007, with the fourth scheduled for launch aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket in late October.
The e-Geos ground infrastructure includes eight antennas located at the company’s Matera, Italy, facility. In addition to the radar data, e-Geos has struck image-distribution agreements giving it rights, in certain geographic areas, to distribute imagery from satellites operated by GeoEye and DigitalGlobe of the United States, MDA Corp. of Canada and ImageSat of Israel.
