Posted: Thu, Apr 9, 2009, 8:00 AM ET (1200 GMT)
The White House has approved a new reconnaissance satellite program that will combine the development of government spacecraft with additional support for commercial imagery purchases. According to the reports, the government will build two sophisticated high-resolution imaging satellites as a replacement for those that would have been built under the now-cancelled Future Imagery Architecture program. In addition, the government will increase its purchase of somewhat lower-resolution imagery from commercial satellites, enough to permit those companies to build two additional satellites. The total cost of the program is estimated by outside experts to be approximately $10 billion.
