[Satellite TODAY 09-24-10] Cerberus Satellite has completed its $78 million purchase of 80,000 GeoEye shares, which the imagery company will use to develop and launch the GeoEye-2 next-generation imaging satellite, GeoEye announced Sept. 23.
    The terms of the stock purchase, initially announced in March, saw Cerberus provide support to GeoEye for its bid for the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency‘s (NGA) EnhancedView award. This commitment was conditioned upon the final award to GeoEye of a satellite under the program. GeoEye received a $3.8 billion contract from the NGA in August.
    NGA is contributing up to $336.9 million toward the overall construction costs of the GeoEye-2 satellite, which is scheduled to be operational in 2013. The EnhancedView award includes $2.8 billion for commercial satellite imagery purchases by the NGA over the next 10 years under the terms of a service level agreement from GeoEye’s satellite constellation.