2019 Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation—Land remote sensing satellite compendium
The 2019 Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation— Land Remote Sensing Satellite Compendium, released June 17, 2019, is the sum of three years of data collection on the global status of Earth imaging satellite platforms.
The initial edition of the compendium notes a dynamic increase in the number of Earth observation satellites, an expansion made possible through the remote sensing contributions of a large global community. The variety of satellites and sensors of varying sizes and capabilities outlined in the 208-page document, presented alongside an abridged history of Earth observation technology, represent the most comprehensive assessment of land remote sensing operations ever compiled.
Five federal agencies, through the Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE) team, collaborated to provide the information in this publication. JACIE is a multiagency collaborative between NASA, NOAA, NGA, USDA and USGS to access the quality and capabilities of newly launched commercial high-resolution satellites. This was the initial edition of this endeavor undertaken by the Requirements, Capabilities, and Analysis for Earth Observation (RCA-EO) project under the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Land Imaging Program as an effort to provide these data to the JACIE community.
Future editions of the compendium are expected to be released annually.