Publisher's Synopsis
The planned growth in remote sensing programmes in the 1990s, with the launch of ERS-1 by ESA and several other satellites by other countries, including the deployment of the Space Station, makes this work a most valuable addition to the "Ellis Horwood Library of Space Science and Space Technology". It shows how existing technology and solutions can provide tomorrow's information needs for the remote sensing community into the next century.;Commencing with a review of the history of data centres for SPOT, Landsat and Earthnet, the author summarizes the facilities available worldwide for satellite data processing and investigates the role of such a data centre. There is a detailed analysis of the requirements from a user viewpoint as well as the needs of satellite data archivists; the main building blocks of a satellite data centre, and the relevant design components, are discussed.;The author then reviews the user interface, operation of the centre and detailed data flow analysis, before showing results of the use of the centre in terms of product, output and development. A final chapter on the future impacts of the technology looks at the geographic information system, on-board data processing, and data fusion. This is a truly valuable work which will have an international market in all areas of space technology and remote sensing.
