HobbySpace - Investing

Remote sensing has often been cited as the next big space industry. After many years of promise and struggle, it can now be said that RS has become a real industry with significant revenues and strong growth.

Several commercial high-resolution satellites were launched in the past few years. Companies have merged and/or changed their names as well.

Their satellites provide high resolution images for commercial and governmental applications. Satellites with radar imagers, that can see at night and through clouds, are also coming to market.

RapidEye is a German company that has launched five remote sensing satillites. These satellites can provide daily images of the same areas with a resolution of (21.3 feet) 6.5 meters, and a picture strip width of roughly 48 miles (78 km). The primary markets include insurance companies and forestry and agricultural users.

In Space -
- Optical photo quality images - High-resolution images, e.g. can separate objects of 1 meteror less in size, were originally for spysat reconaissance. Now, however, they are offered by commercial firms for many non-military applications such as urban planning, flood and other disaster assessments, environmental monitoring, etc.
  - Space Imaging, ImageSat International, GeoEye
  
  - Fully commercialized - i.e. the satellites are financed, built, launched and operated as purely commercial enterprises. The market consists of about %50 governmental, 50% private customers.
- Multi- and hyper- spectral images - most non-military remote sensing satellites do not look for small features but instead look a broad swaths of the earth and divide the light into different wavelengths (i.e. like a prism). The intensities of each band provide a fingerprint that reveals many details such as the mineral identity of a mountain or the health of a wheat field. These satellites are used for all kinds of applications in environmental, geological, oceanographic and many other areas.
  - Spot Image
  
  - Partially commercialized - i.e the satellites are subsidized or fully paid for by government funds but they are operated and marketed by private companies and the image post-processing and enhancements are also done by private companies.
- Radar - lower resolution than optical satellites but can see at night, through clouds, and into deep overgrowth.
  - RadarSat International
  - Partially commercialized - i.e the satellites are subsidized or funded by governments but they are operated and marketed by private companies and the image post-processing and enhancements are also done by private companies.
On the Ground
- Post-processing of raw image and data from RS satellites has long been a commercialized industry. The value-added post processing ranges from basic image enhancements to adding map coordinates to the images to image interpretation,e.g.. identifying promising oil and mineral deposits.
  
  Many such companies work on both satellite and aerial imaging and combine complimentary aspects of both.
  - Fully commercialized
- GIS (Geographic Information Systems) combines remote sensing with all types of ground information, e.g. census, demographic, etc., to create multi-dimensional databases.
  - Fully commercialized
  - Earthsat