atrexx, a German satellite service provider announced that it will play an integral role in the operation of the Europe-based U.S. Air Force Eagle Vision system, known as Eagle Vision-1. It was temporarily deployed to Naples, Italy, and has come into full today, and will support the U.S. Navy in the collection of imagery and geospatial data taken from multiple satellites as part of a U.S./NATO naval exercise. atrexx will provide vital satellite-based Internet connectivity for the program.
The Eagle Vision system is a ground station for the reception of data from civilian remote sensing satellites. With a four meter wide tracking antenna and an accompanying seven meter shelter that houses the electronics for processing the satellite signals, the Eagle Vision operators record images of the Earth on CD and DVD for later viewing.
Five Eagle Vision systems are already in operation across the United States of America. The program is run from offices in the Pentagon and is operated by one active duty and four Air National Guard units. The ground stations and their personnel are equipped and trained to acquire data from commercial imagery satellites, process it, and turn it into useful products for use in many applications such as disaster relief planning, emergency response to developing humanitarian crises, mission rehearsal support, flight planning, terrain analysis and ocean surveillance.
Products generated by Eagle Vision systems are unclassified and can be shared with host nation organizations, non-government organizations and other potential data users once copyright and licensing restrictions are met.
The U.S. Air Force base at Ramstein, Germany, has been working with atrexx for more than five years after it was recognized that a shift to the Internet was required along with the need to be completely independent of the U.S. Government network and the ability to easily re-locate. atrexx was tasked with providing a reliable Internet service, which the team at Ramstein now completely rely upon.
