Earth Observation for Security and Defense

Abstract

The contents reported in this chapter reflect the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the respective Agency/Institutions Space-based Earth Observation is a consolidated capability providing added value to reach information superiority, a crucial enabler for operations in both security and defense domains. The availability and responsiveness of satellite payloads, together with exploitation capacity, allow to plan, monitor, and inform security and defense forces with performance not available with other means. This chapter describes how the gap between security and defense domains is increasingly blurred and the capacity to exploit the “big data” made available by the satellite systems and other contributing missions is becoming a common technological and operational challenge.