Brandenburg / Havel, Germany, December 7, 2011 –  RapidEye, a leader in wide  area, repetitive coverage of Earth through its constellation of satellites  announced today that it has signed a contract with China's Ministry of Land  and Resources (MLR) to cover almost five million square kilometers of China  over the next few months.

This is the third consecutive year that RapidEye was a successful bidder to  cover China for the MLR.

“With its five satellites and the strongest satellite imagery collection  capability to our markets, the RapidEye system performs extremely well when  serving clients such as MLR,” commented Mr. Bing Sun, CEO of Beijing Eastdawn  Information Technology Co. Ltd.(EDIT). “We strongly believe our partnership  with RapidEye brings the best satellite technology available as well as  service know-how to the Chinese market.”

“There was a tremendous amount of preparation by our Chinese distributor, EDIT  to position us. The competition is getting more severe, but EDIT represented  us well,” commented John Ahlrichs, Vice President of International Sales for  RapidEye. “Of course, the sales process was made easier because we have proven  to the MLR twice before that we are reliable and can deliver high quality data  over wide areas on time or ahead of schedule.”

The agreement between RapidEye and the MLR would require a delivery of nearly  five million square kilometers of China (more than 50% of the country) with  less than 10% cloud cover. Some key areas that will prove a challenge are the  traditionally cloudy areas of Tibet and the Southeastern provinces.

“With an order such as this, there's really no better system than ours to deal  with historically cloudy areas,” commented Massimiliano Vitale, RapidEye's  Chief Operating Officer. “We will never get the areas cloud free, but our  system will have a better chance because of our quick return capabilities.”

In anticipation of the order, RapidEye began imaging the area of interest  (AOI) in early August. Currently the imaging campaign is scheduled for  completion in later this month, earlier than in previous years.

About Eastdawn

Beijing Eastdawn Information Technology Co., Ltd. is a leading geospatial  information provider in China. Founded in 2001, Eastdawn is headquartered in  Beijing, China and is certified as a Class-A surveying and mapping company in  China. Eastdawn provides spatial data services and solutions to governmental  and commercial clients around the world. Eastdawn’s business includes remote  sensing and photogrammetric data capture, data processing and geospatial  information applications. For more information, please visit www.eastdawn.com.cn

About RapidEye

RapidEye is a provider of quality high-resolution satellite imagery and  derived geo-information products. With a constellation of five Earth  Observation satellites, RapidEye images over 4 million square kilometers of  earth every day, and anticipates amassing 3 billion square kilometers in its  archive by February of 2012. With an unprecedented combination of wide area  repetitive coverage and five meter pixel size multi-spectral imagery, RapidEye  is a natural choice for many industries and government agencies. RapidEye:  Delivering the World. www.rapideye.de.

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