Lockheed Allots $150 Million to Image Service : Venture: Partners are sought for satellite-based photo and mapping business. Dividend is raised.

Lockheed Corp. plans to invest at least $150 million in a satellite-based Earth image service it expects to launch in 1997 with the help of outside partners, Chairman Daniel M. Tellep said Tuesday.

Under the project, called the Commercial Remote Sensing System, Lockheed would use a satellite to supply map makers, geographic researchers, energy exploration firms and others with aerial pictures of Earth that have much more detail and resolution than photos available to commercial users in the past.

The Commerce Department last month awarded Calabasas-based Lockheed a license to begin the business, after the federal government issued guidelines allowing companies to commercially market certain types of satellite technology that had been reserved for military and intelligence agencies.

Other aerospace firms, including Beverly Hills-based Litton Industries and Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia, are pursuing the same market. Orbital recently entered a joint venture, called Eyeglass, to market such images.

Lockheed also wants to enlist partners, domestic and foreign, to help finance and distribute its service, Tellep told reporters after Lockheed’s annual meeting in Burbank.

The company expects to approach a broad cross-section of aerospace firms for partners, and has already taken part in exploratory, technical discussions about the project with Hughes Aircraft Co., Loral Corp. and E-Systems Inc.

Tellep would not predict the service’s sales potential but noted that the worldwide market for aerial photography is estimated at $1.7 billion a year, and sales of other geographic data may be worth as much as $3 billion annually.

Touching briefly on several other issues, Tellep said Lockheed is less likely to pursue another takeover of a defense firm because prices of recent merger deals have climbed too high.

He referred particularly to Northrop Corp.’s recent purchase of Grumman Corp. for $2.2 billion and Loral’s buyout of IBM Corp.’s Federal Systems division early this year for $1.5 billion.

Lockheed, which last year bought the F-16 fighter jet line from General Dynamics Corp. for $1.5 billion, also looked at Grumman, but, Tellep said, “we couldn’t justify getting into the bidding” at the prices Grumman was fetching.

Lockheed also announced an 8% increase in its quarterly dividend, to 57 cents a share from 53 cents. The dividend is payable June 6 to stockholders of record May 23. The company is also studying whether to buy back more of its stock, Tellep said.

Both announcements helped Lockheed’s shares Tuesday. The stock climbed $1.25 to $60.875 a share in New York Stock Exchange trading.