2019 Land Remote Sensing Satellite Compendium

Since about 2012, ever-increasing numbers of remote sensing satellites have been launched. This rapidly growing wave of new systems creates a need for a single reference for land remote sensing satellites that provides basic system specifications and linkage to assessments that may have been completed on existing systems. This volume is the first edition of a compendium, which is planned to be updated and released annually.

 

2019.06.27 USG RS.cir1455.200acrobat icon The 2019 Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation—Land Remote Sensing
     Satellite Compendium

This document consists of two primary parts.

The first part contains pertinent and relevant information for the remote sensing community, including articles related to the history and growth of land remote sensing from space, a background on remote sensing law and policy, and a discussion of the primary drivers behind the growth in government and commercial land remote sensing. Also included in this part are short articles giving a brief overview of the Chinese and Russian Earth observation programs and a description of the types of orbits used for remote sensing.

The second part is a set of appendixes containing data on more than 100 land-imaging and land-measuring satellite systems. The appendixes contain a listing of recent and future satellite launches, graphics, and data sheets on more than 100 land remote sensing satellites and systems. Assessment results on individual systems are viewable on the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Calibration Center of Excellence website, which is available at https://www.usgs.gov/land-resources/eros/calval/jacie and can be linked to from the individual data sheets.

The Compendium of Land Remote Sensing Satellites is produced by the Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE), a collaborative multiagency group that began in 2000 between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to assess the quality and capabilities of newly launched commercial high-resolution satellites.

 

You may also wish to check out the World Bank’s report Earth Observation for Water Resources Management.