International Archives of Photogrammetiy and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII Part 7C2. UNISPACE III, Vienna, 1999 
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I5PR5 
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UNISPACE HI - ISPRS Workshop on 
“Resource Mapping from Space' 1 
9:00 am -12:00 pm, 22 July 1999, VIC Room B 
Vienna, Austria 
I5PR5 
quicklooks. In addition value added products such as digitized 
maps and metadata of various kinds are to be located in the 
system to offer the user a more complete infonnation potential. 
10. Future Capabilities of Medium and High Resolution 
Sensors 
There will be many more satellite systems available in the near 
future by many nations. The European Space Agency ESA 
divides them into scientific “Explorer Missions” and operational 
“Earth Watch Missions”. ESA, for example, plans at least four 
explorer missions in the 2003 to 2011 time frame, which are 
directed toward scientific goals 
• to measure the earth’s gravity field from space 
■ to get quantified values for earth radiation 
• to explore the spectral capabilities of image spectrometry 
in a land mission 
• to determine missing parameters of the earth’s atmosphere 
through cloud profiling and the measurement of the wind 
field. 
All these missions are to enable scientists to develop better 
models for climate, atmosphere and other physical parameters, 
which could help to explain gaps in scientific understanding. 
The Earth Watch missions plan to improve tire current 
capabilities of resources and cartographic satellites. To these 
count the Japanese, Indian, European, and American missions 
ALOS, IRS-1D, Envisat, Spot 5, and Landsat 7. But of foremost 
interest are the U.S. commercial ventures for high resolution 
imagery. 
As is usual with planned systems, the details about these 
ventures change almost every month. 
A summary compiled by L. Fritz in October 1997 is shown in 
figure 11 with relevant parameters in updated form. 
This will vastly improve the present sensing capabilities. The 
novel approach shall be an end-to-end data provision system 
including corrections for calibration and reference systems, 
cataloguing, value added processing and distribution. 
Satellite imaging and processing capabilities may become a 
serious competitor to the traditional aerial survey industry 
unless the two approaches are merged and used in 
supplementation. Thus Mapping from Space is by no means a 
dream. Conceptually and on the experimental level it is now a 
reality soon to become operational on a competitive basis. 
11. Conclusion 
If one looks at the global scenario of development from the 
historical perspective one can conclude: 
■ The 19 th century was the century of interference and 
control between nations, a time when colonial powers used 
to introduce their limited mapping systems for their own 
resource exploitation by inadequate means. 
■ The 20 th century became the century of independence and 
competition between nations. In this century mapping for 
national resource management became possible through 
the World War proven aerial photogrammetric techniques 
propagated through the United Nations often with the help 
of donor countries. 
■ The 21 st centuiy is likely to become the century of 
interdependence and cooperation between nations. In 
satellite remote sensing their is hope in the coordination 
activities of CEOS to globally plan satellites for global and 
regional needs. There is also hope in the recent formation 
of international consortia to build sensing systems for 
satellites and to process these products as GIS input in an 
end-to-end system. 
In this scenario mapping from satellites constitutes a 
contribution to preserve living conditions on this planet by 
providing the necessary information for it.