1. INTRODUCTION 
Integration of different disciplines has become a ma- 
jor task, what is already be acknowledged and un- 
der conceptual considerations and practical realizati- 
ons. Photogrammetry with its main application field 
dealing with air surveys is on the one side a cost ef- 
fective discipline, because a huge amount of object 
points can economically be delivered. Including digi- 
tal image processing techniques the derivation of digi- 
tal terrain models (DTM) is solved automatically (F. 
Ackermann/M. Hahn, 1991) without any operator con- 
trol. On the other side restrictions of photogrammetry 
so far was analog image data acquisition. To overcome 
this ’ defect ’ aerial images are scanned and then ready 
for a digital workflow. Though digital sensors for aerial 
photogrammetry are under development (C. Thom/I. 
Jurvillier, 1993, O. Hofmann et al., 1993) it is not ex- 
pected that such systems will operate in practice before 
the next millenium. Probably, the next 5-10 years ae- 
rial photogrammetry will operate hybrid, what means 
captured analog imagery is digitized in high-resolution 
scanners. Two products of digital photogrammetry are 
already generated in today's practice: D'TM's and or- 
thoimages (orthophotos). 
Sensor development in remote sensing very soon con- 
centrated on digital image acquisition. With the Land- 
sat programme a series of digital spaceborne sensors 
was and is still in operation — further improvements ai- 
med at a higher pixel resolution and stereo capability 
(for example Landsat, Spot). 
In Germany since the midst of the seventies an Earth 
Oberservation Programme called MOMS is under de- 
velopment. It was put into operation onboard NASA's 
Space Transportation System (STS, Space Shuttle) 
three times. MOMS is an acronym for Modular Op- 
tical Multispectral/Stereo Scanner. What are the ob- 
jectives behind this German Earth Observation Pro- 
gramme? The guidelines behind this programme have 
been worked out by the German Space Agency (DARA, 
Deutsche Agentur für Raumfahrtangelegenheiten) es- 
pecially to 
e establish and develop the technical and scientific 
basis for the utilization of space techniques 
e acquire global, regional and local information on 
the earth surface as far as MOMS is concerned 
e provide adequate technical systems and scientific 
validated methods for data processing, evaluation 
and interpretation 
e demonstrate the applicability of earth observation 
from space 
e support the transition of experimental systems 
into operational ones 
e sponsor pilot programmes 
As far as the MOMS programme is concerned the 
milestones of its developments are as follows. 'The pro- 
gramme started with first with investigations on the 
utilization of CCD line scanner imagery in 1977. At 
that time the Electro Optical Scanner (EOS) - today 
to be seen in The German Museum Munich - with one 
CCD line array was flown in an aircraft; further an 
engineering model of MOMS was built. 
'The first success of the MOMS sensor of its 1st ge- 
neration — being indicated simply by MOMSO01 — were 
the two flights with the NASA Space Shuttle about ten 
years ago. Besides the verification of the technology in 
space approximately 1000 scenes with an at that time 
unprecedented resolution of 20 m were collected. The 
data were evaluated in the frame of an international 
announcement of opportunity and a data exchange ag- 
reement with NASA. 
Using the experience of MOMSOI camera design the 
second generation MOMS02 was developed. This sen- 
sor is quite different from MOMSO01 because it fulfills 
the following requirements: 
e three-fold stereo imagery 
e along-track stereo imagery 
e high resolution panchromatic imagery 
e multispectral imagery 
e combination of stereo and multispectral imagery 
This sensor was flown onboard the second German 
Space Shuttle Mission (D2) from April 26 till May 6, 
1993 with the objectives to generate automatically di- 
gital terrain models and its follow-up products with 
high accuracy, e.g. standard deviations in height less 
than 5 m, further to allow for data fusion of thematic 
mapping with digital terrain models and to integrate 
the results in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). 
At present the MOMS02 sensor is slightly modified to 
operate onboard the Russian Space Station MIR from 
1995 to 1997 (onto segment PRIRODA). The objec- 
tives behind this German/Russian cooperation are as 
follows: 
e first German/Russian cooperation in Earth Ob- 
servation 
e optimization of data evaluation algorithms for 
operational applications 
e multisensor utilization 
e development of a marketing strategy for earth ob- 
servation data 
But how will the resulting knowledge up to now 
and of MOMS02/PRIRODA be used for further de- 
velopments? At present it is still an open question in 
Germany, although we had some discussions about a 
MOMS satellite to be operational towards the end of 
this millenium with full area coverage and a resolution 
on ground of 1 - 2 m. 
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