GeoEye, Inc. (NASDAQ: GEOY), a provider of space-based and aerial imagery and geospatial information, hit us with some good news, and a whole host of bad news today.

With GeoEye’s only U.S. competitor DigitalGlobe (NYSE: DGI) going public later this week, lots of attention is being bestowed upon both companies as a true apples-to-apples comparison can now be made as it relates to their satellite fleets, valuations and prospects going forward.

The problem?

As those that follow me on Twitter know, today GeoEye hosted its fiscal 1st quarter earnings conference call, and there was a little nugget of information about halfway into the call that caught Wall Street and me by unexpected surprise: The company’s newest satellite, GeoEye-1 is experiencing some technical problems that GeoEye is currently evaluating and determining how it will affect the company’s prospects going forward.

As you can see by the stock price, investors sure didn’t wait around for a nice and tidy explanation, and now with more focus on this sector as a result of Jim Cramer highlighting DigitalGlobe on Mad Money, as well as increased attention by various news outlets, now is certainly not the time for GeoEye to be experiencing some technical difficulties.

What follows is a summary of GeoEye’s earnings announcement and conference call, and what you need to know if you own, or are thinking of owning the stock.

New to the GeoEye story?

GeoEye provides space-based, and aerial imagery and geospatial information through high-resolution and low-resolution imagery, imagery-derived products, and image processing services to customers worldwide.

This capability benefits a broad array of industries including national defense and intelligence, online mapping, state and local governments, environmental monitoring and land use management, oil and gas, utilities, disaster management, insurance and others.

GeoEye operates in what in essence is a duopoly with only one other U.S.