A Short History of Commercial Earth Observation
How did Earth observation move from a government monopoly to a commercial industry, and what does the history say about today's boom?
Chapter summary
For its first decades EO belonged to governments.
Key takeaways
- 1
Landsat began civil observation in 1972; France's SPOT sold imagery commercially from 1986; the US allowed private high-resolution satellites in 1992 and the first, IKONOS, reached about 1 m resolution in 1999.
- 2
The 2000s were the era of a few large, expensive satellites sold mostly to the US government.
- 3
The 2010s brought small satellites: Planet's Doves imaged the whole land surface daily, and SAR start-ups such as ICEYE and Capella proved that radar could be small and cheap.
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What Earth Observation Is: the Sensors
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