Current US remote sensing policies: opportunities and challenges

This article examines recent progress in US land remote sensing policies by reviewing the evolution of policy on commercial imaging satellites from 1992 to the present and charting developments in the Landsat programme. Key features of the new (2003) commercial remote sensing policy are described, which go far in addressing the ambiguities of the earlier (PDD-23) framework that, in practice, hampered development of a commercial industry. In the case of Landsat, problems, particularly those of assured data provision, remain. The key to solving them lies in integrating civil, military and commercial elements more coherently, rather than considering them in isolation.