May 22, 2007:
Fans of Google Earth, and other web
based satellite photo sources, just got another supplier. South Korea, will now
offer the one meter resolution pictures from its Arirang 2 photo satellite,
starting next month. This makes four high resolution photo birds (including
Quickbird 2, IKONOS-2 and EROS-A) supplying the growing demand for satellite
based images. The more satellites offering such images, the better the overall
coverage of the planet. The military and law enforcement also take advantage of
these commercial photo satellites, even though they have access to higher
resolution military photo satellites. The military birds are usually in big
demand, so if you want to look at some lower priority area, you see what the
commercial satellites have available. Police, aid groups, and researchers of
all kinds, have found the commercial satellite photos essential. Terrorist
groups find these services useful as well, but this has not been a serious
enough problem to try and restrict access to satellite images.