EADS Astrium Services has formed a Greek remote sensing subsidiary called Spot Infoterra Hellas. The company will be 81% owned by Astrium via its earth observation division Spot Infoterra and 19% by the founders of Greek geo-information specialist…
EADS Astrium Services has formed a Greek remote sensing subsidiary called Spot Infoterra Hellas. The company will be 81% owned by Astrium via its earth observation division Spot Infoterra and 19% by the founders of Greek geo-information specialist Geomet.
As part of the transaction, Geomet, which has a long-standing commercial relationship with Infoterra, will be merged into the new entity.
Spot Infoterra Hellas will focus on providing geo-information products and services to the Greek market. Alongside selling data provided by the Spot, Pleiades and TerraSAR-X Earth observation satellites, the new venture will also develop additional services as part of the GMES initiative (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), with a special focus on natural disasters such as the fires that devastated Greece in 2009. The company expects to employ a staff of around 30 people within the next two years.
Astrium merged its remote sensing subsidiaries Spot Image and Infoterra into a single division in May 2010. The combined company is estimated to have generated 2009 revenues of approximately US$189m, a 6% year-on-year increase. Astrium acquired Spot Image, which owns two satellites and has ordered two more birds Spot Image 6 and 7, back in mid-2008 from the French space agency CNES.
