Posted: Wed, Dec 1, 2004, 8:03 AM ET (1303 GMT)
The General Accounting Office has dismissed a protest by a losing bidder for one of the government's NextView commercial remote sensing satellite awards. ORBIMAGE, the company that won the NextView contact in late September, announced Monday that it had been notified by the GAO that the agency had dismissed a protest on that contract. The protest had been filed by New SI LLC, a corporate entity formed by Space Imaging that lost the NextView competition. The $500-million NextView contract will allow ORBIMAGE to build OrbView-5, a high-resolution commercial remote sensing satellite that will serve commercial and government customers. Both ORBIMAGE and Space Imaging operate commercial remote sensing satellites; Space Imaging had previously stated that it needed the NextView contract to pay for the development of a replacement satellite.
