Remote sensing technologies have come a long way since scientists first photographed Earth from the skies more than 100 years ago. Today, satellite imaging can be leveraged for urban geography, plant-health monitoring, military intelligence, and coral reef research.
Tanya Harrison, director of research at Arizona State University NewSpace Initiative, led a special session at SATELLITE 2019 showcasing what commercial remote sensing is capable of producing today.
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The frequency of environmental challenges such as landslides, mudslides, tsunamis, and hurricanes has opened up a huge market need for Earth Observation technologies. “You can actually see where entire crusts of earth have been displaced,” Harrison explained. “Rather than looking at what NASA or ESA is collecting … and hoping for the best, you get higher resolution imaging and cadence imaging.”
Harrison noted that many scientists have yet to take advantage of commercial remote sensing. An informal Twitter poll of her 30,000 followers found 53 percent do not use commercial image datasets — often because they don’t know how to access the data or assume government agencies have the best technology.
Arizona State University has partnered with Planet to give students and researchers access to Dove and RapidEye satellite imagery. Harrison highlighted how the Fagraskogarfjall landslide of 2018 — one of the largest ever recorded — showed that commercial images provided a more granular level of detail than ESA imagery alone, helping first responders and researchers understand how future landslides might occur. VS
