Managing Uncertainty from the Sky: Surveillance Through Three Generations of Commercial Earth Observation Satellites

Abstract

This chapter deals with the issue of surveillance and reconnaissance through space based earth observation commercial satellites, since they first appeared as a technology available to anyone forty five (45) years ago. Analysis divides this long period into “three generations of Earth Observation satellites”. The first two generations, are distinguished from the third, using the criterion of derived products. The first two generations products were still imagery, while the third has added video too. The criterion of distinguishing the first and second generation, is the spatial resolution of their still imagery. As a result, the first provided general area surveillance, while the second provided reconnaissance. Implementing this criterion, these two first generations have lasted twenty six (26) years the first and fourteen (14) years the second accordingly. This chapter argues that the biggest breakthrough in decades actually occurred in 2014. A third generation has already breakout that year: it is the generation that has very high spatial resolutions in still imagery and videos too. This is also supplemented with high (to very high) temporal resolution (the time between image acquisitions). Minimizing the time between image acquisitions, is a key requirement for governmental users. It is this last technical characteristic which aims to cover the existing gap on the global quest (mainly from the users in the security and defence domain) for a permanent observation capability.