1. High resolution imagery Intro: authorised by Clinton, First Soviet ‘high-res’ spy satellite ~1960 Zenit 2

2. High res imagery and Hollywood
"MI2" and "Enemy of the State" play off a Hollywood myth: that satellites are just cruising in space, available at a moment's notice - or at least a few minutes' wait. In reality, satellites are almost never where they need to be during a crisis.
The best resolution of an American spy satellite, was reputed to be about 2 1/2 inches. This means that the smallest visible object would be the size of a baseball, not the thin letters and numbers on a license plate.

3. Spy satellites and British based movies
a. How satellites figure in the plot.
b. What it got right.
c. What it got wrong.
ICE STATION ZEBRA (1968)
a. A capsule of 16mm film from a satellite falls in the Arctic and superpowers race to find it (based on a true story)
b. Early satellites did drop their film to Earth/Resolution of images about right
c. The resolution of 16mm film isn't good enough to see anything
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999)
a. British spy satellite photographs James Bond in the sack with beautiful scientist
b. Not much
c. When did the British get a spy satellite?

4. Does Hollywood ever get it right
Does Hollywood ever get it right? The film that has come closest is Patriot Games. Harrison Ford plays Jack Ryan, an ex-CIA analyst helping track down a rogue group of Irish Republican Army terrorists.
Using satellite imagery, Ryan tries to determine who is in the camp. They can see people, but not faces, using a microscope.
They identify a woman by her cleavage and a man by his bald head.
All of this is reasonably accurate. Indeed, the filmmakers demonstrate their knowledge of the cat-and-mouse game of reconnaissance: The IRA terrorists know exactly when American satellites will be overhead and hide in their tents to escape detection.
To counter this move, Ryan asks that the satellites be reprogrammed so they can look sideways, off their orbital track. "Do you have any idea how big a deal it is to retask the satellites?" a senior CIA official asks him. "Yes," Ryan answers bluntly.
This was an example of the screenwriter getting something right and wrong. Satellites rarely fly directly over their targets, so they normally take images slightly off of their orbital track. If Ryan had asked that the satellite orbit be altered so that it appeared overhead the film would have been more accurate.
Moving a satellite's orbit is indeed a big deal.

5. And now for the good stuff …..

6. ALOS (Advanced Land Observation Satellite) 2006
National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA)
Altitude 692km orbit angle 98.2
Resolution
2.5m panchromatic 10m multispectral
Band
Wavelength Region (µm)
Resolution (m)
PAN
2.5
PRISM
Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping
AVNIR-2
Band
Wavelength Region (µm)
Resolution (m) 1
(blue) 10 2
(green) 3
(red) 4
(near-IR)

7. 2.5m DEM

8. 2.5 m colour composite

9. Geomatica OrthoEngine v10.2 Tutorial Orthorectifying ALOS PRISM Data
ALOS references
The contribution of the European Space Agency to the ALOS PRISM / AVNIR-2 commissioning phase.
Revising 1:25,000-Scale Topographic Maps Using ALOS/PRISM Imagery
Verification of Topographic Road Centerline Data Using ALOS/PRISM Images
Geomatica OrthoEngine v10.2 Tutorial Orthorectifying ALOS PRISM Data

10. the Soviet bloc countries
America’s first reconnaissance satellite program designed to take photos of
the Soviet bloc countries
Corona missions were officially top secret until 1992
Photos became declassified on February 22nd, 1995
144 Corona satellites were launched and 102 returned usable photos
860,000 images of the earth's surface collected between 1960 and 1972 10

11. Enlargement capability < 10x 16x 8x
SYSTEM
KH 1-4
KH-4A
KH-4B
KH-5
KH-6
Camera Type
Single Panoramic
Double** Panoramic
Frame
Single*** Panoramic
Film Width
70 mm
127 mm
Focal Length
61 cm
7.6 cm
167.6 cm
Enlargement capability
< 10x
16x 8x
Best Ground Res.
(Approx.)
7.6 m
2.7 m
1.8 m
140 m
Altitude
165 – 460 km
185 km
150 km
320 km
170 km
Scale on Film
1:275,000 to 1:760,000
1:305,000
1:247,000
1:4,250,000
1:100,000
Date launched*
Jun 1959 – Dec 1969
Aug 1963 –
Oct 1969
Sep 1967 –
May 1972
Feb 1961 – Aug 1964
Mar 1963 – Jul 1963
* Once launched flights could remain in orbit up to 19 days with the proper conditions
** Two cameras looking 30° apart
*** programmed to tilt fore and aft to cover the same land twice
The Corona satellites used 9,600 m of special 70 mm film with a 61 cm focal length lens. Initially orbiting at 165 to 460 km, the cameras could resolve images on the ground down to 7.5 m. The two KH-4 systems improved the resolution to 2.75 m and 1.8 m respectively and used a lower altitude pass. 11

12. Images can be ordered from EROS Data Center:
Pentagon National Reconnaissance Office
A JC-130 recovery aircraft of the U.S. Air Force retrieves a
Corona satellite film-return capsule, also known as a
“bucket,” over the Pacific Ocean.
Photo credit: CSNR collection.
Images can be ordered from EROS Data Center:
EarthExplorer from USGS:
The Israeli Dimona nuclear reactor complex.
Photographed by Corona satellite on
November 11th,

13. Past, Current and Future Uses of Corona Photos
Military purposes
Photo-geologic mapping
Identification of natural resources
Agricultural land-cover classification
Archaeological studies
Literature:
A repository of earth resource information – CORONA satellite programme
Dashora, A., et al
Digital surface model generation from CORONA satellite images
Altmaier, A. and C. Kany
Satellite imagery and archaeology: the example of CORONA in the Altai Mountains
Goossens, R., et al
Detection of archaeological crop marks on declassified CORONA KH-4B intelligence
satellite photography of southern England
Fowler, M.J.F and Y.M. Fowler

14. Cartosat-1 2005-Present Sensors: Satellite Hansen Aft
Stereoscopic PAN 2.5m; Fore+26° aft-5°; nm
Swath: 30 km stereo, 55 km mono
Data: 10 bits per pixel
Satellite
Altitude: km; Scan at 10:30
Orbits per day: 15
Max. wait for revisit: 5 days
Orbit: 97.87°
Geolocation accuracy:250 meters
Fore
Hansen
(Rome; Baltsavias et al 2008)

15. Cartosat-1 2005-Present Hansen
Affiliation: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
Cartosat 2, 2A, & 2B: each has <1m mono PAN; 9.6 km swath
Cartosat 3: will be launched this year. Mono PAN .25m, nm multispectral <1m; 16 km swath
1 stereo 27.5 km X 27.5 km Cartosat-1 =12,000 rupees (currently $264 USD)
Hansen

16. Cartosat-1 2005-Present Hansen
Z-axis residuals from highly accurate DSM derived from three separate sensors and a dense grid of ground control points (Baltsavias et al 2008), where each shade represents 3 m.
DSM of Fuzhou, China, created
from Cartosat data (EastDawn)
Hansen

17. Technical Specifications: Pricing: Data User Handbook: DSMs:
Cartosat Present
Technical Specifications:
Pricing:
Data User Handbook:
DSMs:
Technical Assessment:
Use of Cartosat-1 DSM in delimiting Temple Ruins:
Hansen