The place of small satellites in fulfilling the Earth observation requirements of a developing country

Of the three or four major areas of use of satellites, Earth observation is probably the most attractive one for non-space-faring countries, in their aspirations to step into the space age. The expressed purpose to make use of space technologies for the benefit of the country covers both acquiring regional terrain data needed for development, and starting to build the infrastructure for further space efforts. Although building of remote sensing spacecraft may require a lower level of technology and a lower cost than communication or navigation satellites, the technical barriers and economic feasibility have still been too high for most developing countries to start a program of building observation satellites. Thus remote sensing still has been largely the realm of a few countries which have also dominated the commercial market for Earth imagery.