Onekotan Island, Russia as seen by a BlackBridge satellite. Photo: BlackBridge

[Via Satellite 10-23-2014] Satellite Earth Observation data, value-added services and information products are expected to more than double from $2.3 billion in 2013 to $5.1 billion in 2023, according to NSR’s new “Satellite-Based Earth Observation (EO), 6th Edition” report. Driving this growth is a combination of higher resolution imagery and increasing demand from public authorities. Defense and intelligence customers are expected to remain the largest buyers, but public authorities are finding greater use for satellite data in applications such as forestry, vegetation monitoring, city planning and pollution monitoring.

“Optical imagery at 30-cm ground resolution will be available in the coming months for a set of more specialized users, while free data from low resolution sensors will flood the market, thereby leaving some operators out in the cold” said Claude Rousseau, research director and report author at NSR. “This could mean more revenues from the traditionally demanding military users, while free data may cut down margins in the low-end of the market where data analysis is not such a large part of the revenue pie. The result could be contraction in the market for data and a strong push to develop more solutions that use lower resolution data along the value chain.”