By mid 2007, 12 satellites have been launched with the Earth observation instruments for different purposes (Table 1.) China and Japan are the leaders (2 satellites each) in the number of Earth remote sensing satellites launched. India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Italy, Russia and Germany launched one satellite each.

Notably, the given launch rate is very high this year. For comparison, the last year witnessed only 15 successful launches, with only 14 RS satellites’ insertions in 2005.

All satellites launched within the first half of year 2007 with Earth observation instruments onboard are evenly divided between military and commercial spacecrafts:

• 5 satellites of military imagery intelligence and 1 of dual-purpose (Japan – 2, China, Israel, Italy and Russia – 1 satellite each);
• 6 civil commercial RS satellites (India, China, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany and Italy – one satellite per each country).

No meteorological satellites were launched during the first half of the year. There were 6 military satellites, 5 meteo- and 4 commercial and civil satellites launched in 2006.

Around 13 civil, commercial and military satellites are declared to be put into orbit in the second half of 2007 by India, USA, Canada, Germany, Republic of South Africa, Thailand, Italy, China and Brazil (one of them, the radar imagery intelligence satellite of Bundeswehr, was already launched on July 2, 2007).
Unfortunately, there are actually no Russian spacecrafts prepared to be inserted by yearend.

Basic results, specifics, trends and plans for 2007 launches:

• Extremely high rate of RS satellites launches as compared to previous years throughout the past 5 years.
• Big number of high resolution SAR satellites launches; 5 SAR military and civil satellites were already launched in 2007 (IGS-3R, Yaogan-2, COSMO-1, TerraSAR-X, SAR-Lupe-1) and 2-3 more satellites can be put into orbit (RADARSAT-2, SAR-Lupe-3, COSMO-2 and others)
;
• Scheduled launches of new generation satellites with half-meter resolution optical sensors GeoEye-1 and WorldView-1
,
• Expected appearance of China on the RS market as a result of scheduled CBERS-2B commercial satellite launch and of the new FY-3A meteosatellite with a MODIS-like scanner.

Influence of 2007 RS satellites launches on the world data market

Recently launched Cartosat-2 and future GeoEye-1, WorldView-1 and THEOS satellites with high performance optical systems on board of 0.4 to 2 m resolution, may have a strong influence on the world market of remote sensing data within the next year.

In sphere of meter resolution radar images and derivative geo-products a competition is expected from the side of three basic companies - TerraSAR-X, COSMO-1and RADARSAT-2 data suppliers. Infoterra company may be the first to start supplying its TerraSAR-X radar data to the world market in early 2008.

This review is prepared based on the information from news agencies and Internet-sites.

Prepared by Kucheiko A.A
(ScanEx R&D Center, phone 246-25-93, kucheiko@scanex.ru)