International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B2. Istanbul 2004
3.2 Spaceborne imagery cost analysis
Spaceborne imagery, which is captured by the sensors mounted
to the earth observation satellites, has reached to a competitive
position that exposes serious threat to the airborne imagery.
High-resolution satellite imagery suitable for photogrammetric
applications has become commercially available within last
decade. Since last five years, resolution of the high-resolution
spaceborne imagery has achieved to sub-meter level.
At present, some remote sensing satellites such as IKONOS,
QUICKBIRD, EROS and ORBVIEW are being operated by
private companies while the satellites SPOT, LANDSAT and
IRS are operated by governmental organizations. Imagery
prices of some remote sensing satellites are given in Table 5.
: Resolution Cost
Satellite Image m) Band (USS/km?)
0,61 PAN 22,00
QUICKBIRD | Standard
2,44 MS 22,00
1,00 PAN 21,50
IKONOS Geo :
4,00 MS 24.30
EROS Standard 1,80 PAN 8,00
i ; PAN 0,31
LISS-IV 5,80
IRS MS 0,82
LISS-111 25,00 MS 0,14
MS 2,47
2 50
PAN 1,72
MS 1.72
5,00
SPOT Standard PAN 0,97
MS 0,97
10,00
PAN 0,75
20,00 MS 073
LANDSAT ETM+ 15,00 MS 0,05
Table 5. Satellite imagery costs per sq km
When satellite imagery costs are looked into, it will be noticed
that cost increase is directly proportional with image resolution.
Another factor that excites the cost of the satellite imagery is
the clectromagnetic band of the image where multispectral
imagery comes out to be more expensive than the panchromatic
imagery of the same satellite.
3.3 Investment cost analysis
Main components of an imaging system are platform, sensor,
and ground facilities. For establishing an airborne imagery
system aircraft, aerial camera and hangar are the main items.
On the other hand, fundamental requirements of a satellite
imagery capturing system are a spacecraft, sensors and ground
station for communication with the satellite,
For executing either airborne or spaceborne operations, large
volume investments such as airfields and navigation aids for
aircraft flights and space centers that have launching ramps and
capable of launching the satellite to its orbit with proper launch
vehicles are required. Normally, governments realize these kind
of huge investments because they are very costly and
multipurpose utilitics. For example, airfields and air navigation
are used by other air traffic as well and space centers or
launching sites do not only launch remote sensing satellites but
also conduct all kinds of satellite launch operations.
Currently there are only eleven countries (USA, Russia, France,
China, Japan, India, Israel, Brazil, Australia, Italy and Spain)
that operate one or more launching site because construction
and operation of a launching site does not only require high
technology but also demands considerable financial resource.
When the subject is considered from tip to toe, installation and
operation of a launching site is a matter of several billions US$.
Despite the high technology and the financial demand of the
satellite system, countries could still have their own satellites.
Launching of the satellite could be accomplished at the centers
that are operated by countries stated above. Building and
operating of a satellite ground station is rather achievable part
of the satellite system. There are certain centers that market the
satellite technology and give on-the-job training during the
production of the spacecraft and/or sensors.
Until recent years, earth observation satellites used to be built
and operated by the governmental organizations of some certain
countries such as Russia, USA, France and India. However,
launching of the private sector owned commercial remote
sensing satellites, which are capable of capturing high
resolution imagery, not just started a new era but also
encouraged some countries to have their own remote sensing
satellites. New generation, small satellites could be launched
with financial amount expressed as of ten millions US$.
Turkey is one of the countries that have its own remote satellite
(Figure 6), which was built at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.
facilities and launched on September 27”, 2003 by the Russian
launch vehicle Cosmos-3. First Turkish remote sensing satellite
Bilsat-1 weighs 129 kg and orbits around the earth at an altitude
of 686 km with electro-optic sensor having 12 m panchromatic
and 23 m multispectral resolution (Leloglu & Sweeting, 2002).
650
Figure 6. Turkish remote sensing satellite Bilsat-1
From the aerial survey point of view, infrastructure such as
airfields and navigation aids are present in almost all countries
but every country has this capability proportional to its
development level. Therefore there is no need to consider this
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