firms now link the promise of geo-spatial information
systems (GIS) to the markedly reduced costs of
developing and launching satellites, resulting in very
attractive market opportunities. Then there are the
continual advancements in digital technology (for
example, a 7000 by 9000 full frame CCD for sensors
was just announced by Philips Imaging Technology)
which allow satellite systems, which easily could have
cost one billion US dollars ten years ago, to be built
now for under 100 million dollars.
In the USA, the Department of Commerce responded
positively to industry requests to permit high
resolution imagery to be collected and distributed
internationally on a non-discriminatory, commercial
basis. As a result, Earth observation satellites now
being developed will have the capability to provide
better than one-meter spatial resolution by the year
1998. The developers and their partners are
positioning themselves to serve an expected $2 billion
annual commercial imaging market in the year 2000.
Currently the satellite and aircraft imaging market is
estimated to.be about $700 million.
The foremost driver of commercial Earth imagery
products now is the progression of "The Information
Age." Today’s society craves information. Although
information for traditional public products, such as
maps, would often take seven years to produce from
the planning stage, it is clear that in today’s society
this delay is unacceptable. In addition, the GIS and
the new, innovative niche markets such as "precision
farming" are demonstrating the high value of temporal
information for updates and forecasts. The sooner
information is produced the more often and quicker
consumers demand it. These insatiable spatial
information needs, as exemplified by the myriad of
new GPS applications, will include the imaging
market. Properly packaged, the benefits of
commercial digital imaging satellites can readily satisfy
consumer demands, especially for geo-spatial
information. It has been projected that as much as
80% of the information used in decision-making
processes has geo-based context.
Given this rationale and the positive potential for
viable commercial opportunities, several corporations
have begun their quest to design, develop, field and
operate high resolution Earth observation satellites
and to form international corporate alliances and
partnerships to establish the system infrastructures
needed to sustain full service imaging data and
product capabilities.
The following sections outline a current summary of
the technical characteristics and infrastructure
strategies of several commercial Earth observation
systems.
EARTHWATCH INCORPORATED
The merger of the commercial remote sensing
activities of the former WorldView Imaging
Corporation with the Ball Aerospace & Technology
Corp. brought together two distinctively different
technical approaches. Combined, their EarthWatch
Inc. provides a formidable constellation of imaging
systems to address the breadth of the applications
market. EarthWatch headquarters are located in
Longmont, Colorado. It is managed by Dr. Richard
Herring, Chief Executive Officer, a Senior Vice
President from Ball Aerospace; Douglas B. Gerull,
President and Chief Operating Officer, the former
Executive Vice President and head of the Mapping
Sciences Division of Intergraph Corporation; and Dr.
Walter Scott, Chief Technical Officer and former SDI
Program Manager at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratories.
The EarthWatch imaging systems, "EarlyBird" and
"QuickBird," are designed to fulfill the imagery needs
of the international GIS/mapping community and civil
and military reconnaissance programs. With its
combination of one, three, four and 15 meter
resolutions available from two types of satellites
orbiting in tandem, it offers the user a wide choice of
metric and spectral options. Plans are to launch the
three and 15 meter resolution EarlyBird in August
1996 followed by a July 1997 launch of the one and
four meter resolution QuickBird. Subsequent
satellites will be launched based on market demand,
although two of each satellite are now under
construction.
EarlyBird's two-dimensional CCD staring array
cameras are unique and both its panchromatic and
multispectral digital images will have the attributes of
traditional film image frame cameras. That is, its
design is to offer rigid photogrammetric geometry for
the high metric accuracies needed by the GIS and
mapping community. EarlyBird’s multispectral (MS)
frames cover an area of 30 by 30 kilometers over
which it can image simultaneously 6 by 6 km
panchromatic (pan) scenes. The entire MS frame can
be covered in stereo by 36 pan scenes. Using photo
identified control, EarlyBird is capable of providing an
RMS accuracy of six meters horizontally and four
meters vertically for GIS/mapping projects. The range
of the three MS wavebands of EarlyBird and the four
MS wavebands of QuickBird are almost identical to
SPOT bands 1-3 and Landsat bands 1-4 respectively.
The MS and pan imagers of QuickBird share a
common aperture. The image collection capabilities
of EarlyBird and QuickBird in near-polar (97.3°) and
high inclination (52°) orbits simultaneously will
provide consumers many options as shown in figure 1.
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International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B4. Vienna 1996
