An Eagle Vision 5 antenna at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. Photo: Airman 1st Class Yash Rojas.

[Via Satellite 11-25-2014] The United States Air Force has awarded Airbus Defence and Space with a system evolution and maintenance contract for its five Eagle Vision ground stations. Eagle Vision is a lightweight deployable, commercial satellite imagery downlink ground system.

Under the contract, Airbus Defence and Space will provide 24/7 support, spares management, preventative maintenance, training and other services. The company will also provide systems evolutions related to footprint reduction (transit cases versus shelter), smaller antenna dishes and the integration of new satellites.

Eagle Vision provides users with optical, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), medium and very high-resolution capabilities for applications such as wartime operations, disaster relief and homeland defense preparations. Airbus Defence and Space’s SPOT 6/7, TerraSAR-X/Tandem-X constellations, MDA’s Radarsat and Blackbridge’s RapidEye satellites provide the imagery. The update will bring in additional imagery from DigitalGlobe’s Worldview satellites and Airbus Defence and Space’s Pleiades spacecraft. According to Airbus Defence and Space, the use of commercial satellites allows the data to be freely shared among the allied forces.