Commercial Earth observation services provider RapidEye AG on June 10 signed a contract with Dniprocosmos State Co. of Ukraine to be RapidEye’s imagery distributor in that country.

Dniprocosmos, which is part of the National Space Agency of Ukraine, has been working since 2008, when RapidEye’s five small satellites were launched by the Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr rocket, to develop RapidEye services in Ukraine.

VyacheslavVoloshyn, deputy director of Dniprocosmos, said his company in 2009 completed with Havel, Germany-based RapidEye a pilot project to assess Ukrainian agricultural resources. The two companies are currently using RapidEye satellites to map Ukraine’s land cover. Dniprocosmos provides Earth observation services for the private and government sector in Ukraine.