The economic feasibility of operational earth sensing from space

Earth-sensing satellites designed to follow Landsat involve spatial resolution in the order of 10 to 30 m as compared to the 80 m of the Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS). At these higher resolutions such satellites will perform inspection functions of high importance to government agencies and which are beyond the capabilities of the Landsat MSS.

There is considerable evidence that nations that cannot afford their own Earth-sensing satellites are willing to pay a suitable price for the capability of inspecting their own land and adjacent sea areas. A unit price of 25 cents per square km per year is suggested as a reasonable fee which would provide economic viability to a well defined satellite system such as the Mapsat defined by the U.S. Geological Survey.

This concept and pricing involve only the satellite and its data acquisition and transmission capability. Data reception, processing and distribution would remain a separate function to be implemented on a local or regional basis as is now done.