Theme issue 'High Resolution Earth Imaging for Geospatial Information'

摘要

Earth imaging from air and space has undergone major changes over the last decade. Examples of new and significant developments comprise the development and constant improvement of digital aerial cameras, multiple-echo and full-waveform laser scanners and the appearance of geosensor networks and unconventional platforms, most notably unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), sometimes called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS), and the ever increasing number of high-resolution and hyperspectral optical and SAR satellite sensors, small satellites and satellite constellations, which allow for both, a continued availability of satellite data over long periods of time, and a very short revisit time for any location on the globe. To give few examples: the latest Landsat satellite, appropriately called the Landsat data continuity mission or LDCM was launched on February 2013, continuing the Landsat mission which began back in 1972; during 2013 and 2014 France has put the SPOT 6 and 7 twin satellites into orbit, extending the history of high resolution space images, which started in 1986; and in April 2014 the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully launched the Sentinel 1A satellite with a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor, the first of a fleet of different sensors that will be sent into space in the coming years. Sentinel 1A together with its twin system Sentinel IB, to be launched in 2016, will continue the tremendous success story of ESA's C band SAR satellite activities dating back to 1991. Like the predecessors ERS 1, ERS 2, and Envisat ASAR, the Sentinel 1 systems are designed to cover the entire land mass with medium resolution, the repeat cycle is 12 days for Sentinel 1A alone and will even drop to six days as soon as both satellites are operational.