Slashgeo

About five years ago, I generated a summary table for Earth Observation satellites. This table is somewhat obsolete and as you might guess, requires efforts to maintain. I though a few times about converting the table into a wiki table in order to share the workload and allow frequent updates... maybe now it's time to act! Prior starting the conversion, I'd like your advice! Here's what I found: there's already a list of Earth observation satellites on wikipedia, but a list does not give you a quick overview of characteristics and differences. We also have resources, some wiki tables can be more or less complex and large. What do you think? Is this a good idea? Shall we keep breaking the sensors into groups such as "high resolution", "multispectral", "radar", "hyperspectral", etc (see ARSIST). What should be the rules? Earth Observation only? 1km resolution or better? Oh yeah, one last thing... I'd really appreciate some help! Anyone's interested? :-)

GeoCarta links to a paying report which has a positive summary on the future of remote sensing. From the summary: "The total global market expenditures for remote sensing products were more than $7 billion in 2006 and should reach almost $7.3 billion in 2007. At a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3%, the market will reach more than $9.9 billion by 2012"

Very Spatial blogs about release of the plan for the U.S. National Land Imaging Program [pdf, 14k]. From the blog: "The plan is contained within a 120-page report, which is available here [pdf, 6.8Mb], and offers a set of policy recommendations, most importantly the creation of a National Land Imaging Program under the direction of the Department of the Interior. [...] I think one of the more interesting points in the policy report is the statement that, despite its amazing success, the Landsat program “has never been considered a truly operational capability. All Landsat satellites have been justified, built, and flown as experimental, scientific research systems with no assurance of the long-term continuity of the data.”" See related stories below.

The NASA Earth Observatory runs a long article names "An era of earth observations: looking back at 50 years". From the introduction: "Where will a developing hurricane make landfall? What is the status of the ozone layer? How much will sea level rise? No other single measurement platform has revolutionized the ability to address these and other fundamental Earth science questions as much as satellites orbiting the Earth. From weather forecasting to high-tech navigation systems to answering fundamental questions about the Earth’s climate, satellites have become a crucial part of a wide variety of scientific endeavors and practical applications over the past 50 years."

The Spatial Sustain blog currently has an article detailing this new venture for Digital Globe. From their summary : "DigitalGlobe Inc. filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell stock to the public, with the aim to raise as much as $250 million. The privately held commercial earth observation satellite company indicated that it plans to use the proceeds from the sale to fund construction of its WorldView-2 satellite. The money would also go toward other capital spending projects and to pay off $40 million in debt."

For more information, please visit the Spatial Sustain blog.