Satrec Initiative, a leading solution provider for Earth observation missions, announced an agreement with Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) for "Worldwide Marketing and Sales Representative of KOMPSAT-2, 3 and 5 Image data". KARI assigned Satrec Initiative as the 'worldwide exclusive representative' for KOMPSAT imagery sales.

"Satrec Initiative is pleased that KARI has selected us as the representative for KOMPSAT imagery sales. The KOMPSAT imagery will serve worldwide customers as an alternate source of earth observation data," said Sungdong Park, President and CEO of Satrec Initiative. "Also, we expect the growth of Korean remote sensing industry through commercialization of KOMPSAT imagery by domestic company."

KARI is the Korean institute dedicated to aerospace research, and is in charge of Korean Space Program. KARI has developed, and operated its optical remote sensing satellites such as KOMPSAT- 1, KOMPSAT-2 and KOMPSAT-3, and will launch the first Korean SAR satellite, KOMPSAT-5, shortly.

KOMPSAT-2 was launched on 28 July 2006 and is expected to be operational until the year of 2014. KOMPSAT-2 provides 1m resolution panchromatic and 4m resolution multispectral images. The catalog of KOMPSAT-2 is available at http://arirang.kari.re.kr.

KOMPSAT-3 was launched on 18 May 2012 and has unique local time of 13:30. It provides 0.7m panchromatic and 2.8m resolution multispectral images. Currently, KOMPSAT-3 is under calibration and validation phase, and KOMPSAT-3 data will be available to market early next year.

KOMPSAT-5 is equipped with a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) payload, which will provide spotlight mode (1m), strip mode (3m) and scanSAR mode (20m) data. KOMPSAT-5 will be launched early next year to complete unique constellation of two VHR EO satellites and a VHR SAR satellite.

KARI has chosen Satrec Initiative for its ability to develop international customers and data distribution network, as well as long experience in space industry. Satrec Initiative will deliver high quality image data to worldwide customers through collaboration with existing satellite operators, and in addition to that, building its own KOMPSAT data distribution network.