Technical advances in satellite imagery: Keeping up-

to-date in an increasingly complex landscape

Richard Burren, Director of NPA Satellite Mapping

ESRI European Petroleum GIS Conference – 1st November 2017

Imaging from space today

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvJYSmplzXc&list=LLYChevwGmPl8AJhYSljR3fw&index=114

A lot has changed over the past 45 years….

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Lift off

1972 – An optical insight of the Earth

NASA launches the ERTS-1 satellite, later renamed

Landsat-1

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INTEGRATE LANDSAT image

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Lift off

1991 – All weather imaging

ESA launches the ERS-1 synthetic aperture radar

satellite

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INTEGRATE ERS image

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Aiming higher

1999 – A more detailed optical view…

Spacing Imaging launches the first commercial

high spatial resolution satellite, IKONOS

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INTEGRATE IKONOS image

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Aiming higher

1999 – …and an increased spectral view!

NASA launch the Terra satellite, which hosts the

Japanese multi-spectral ASTER instrument

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INTEGRATE ASTER image

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Aiming higher

2007 – A more detailed, and frequent, radar view

DLR and EADS Astrium launch TerraSAR-X and the

Italian Space Agency/Italian MoD launch the first of four

COSMO-SkyMed satellites

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INTEGRATE TSX image stack & WorldDEM example

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Relax the rules – Increase the detail

2015 – US government restrictions eased

Digital Globe’s WorldView-3 satellite delivers 31cm

spatial resolution imagery

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INTEGRATE WorldView-3 image (before and after)

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Space boom!

Today – Smallsat revolution…

Planet launch 88 more Dove satellites

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March 9, 2016

Image © 2016 Planet Lab Inc. All Rights Reserved

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March 14, 2016

Image © 2016 Planet Lab Inc. All Rights Reserved

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March 15, 2016

Image © 2016 Planet Lab Inc. All Rights Reserved

Space boom!

Today – …and open-access revolution

EC and ESA continue to roll out the Sentinel

family of satellites

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Many more on the horizon!

Tomorrow – An increasingly complex landscape…

WorldView Scout & Legion, Urthedaily, EiX2,

BlackSky, Landmapper…

PAZ, SAOCOM, RADARSAT Constellation Mission,

OptiSAR, MicroSAR, ASNARO-2, ICEYE, Copella…

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More is good, yeah?

Unequivocally, yes

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More

choice Long-term

continuity

High-frequency

collection

Bigger, better

global archives

Increased

agility

More flexible

tasking

More competitive

pricing??

Persistent

collection

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Strengthens our ability to address existing

challenges and enables us to address new ones

Challenges remain…

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Usage

terms Data quality

Cost

Weather

Data access

Processing

power

You only know

what you know

Data size

Deciphering the

marketing

Rules of

physics

Viewing

geometry

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So, where to start?

Start at the end

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What is the challenge?

What do you need to

measure?

Can satellites do

this directly?

Can satellites do this

indirectly?

Start at the end

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SS:MM:HH:DD:MM:YY

Appropriate

scale

Frequency of

change

Budget

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The art of the science is matching these to

available options

Conclusion

Dramatic changes in satellite imaging capabilities and options

Do better

Do more

Comprehensive (impartial) knowledge to connect an application to the

right imagery

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