Commercial Land Remote Sensing Market: Current Assessment, Base-Line Forecast, and Base-Line Alternatives

B. M. Register

Land remote sensing in the United States is in a state of flux, due largely to the confusion resulting from the Landsat commercialization process. The land remote sensing marketplace, comprised of raw data and value-added commodities such as consulting services and computer hardware and software, has been hit not only by the disarray of the Landsat commercialization, but also by factors such as the entrance of SPOT data into the marketplace and the recently depressed state of the non-renewable resources industry.

Nevertheless, despite the turmoil, the entire commercial remote sensing enterprise has been estimated as worth $250 million today and potentially worth $1 billion by the year 2000.

The Space Business Information Center at the University of Houston in Clear Lake has undertaken the task of assessing the current situation in commercial land remote sensing. This paper will address the size and makeup of the land remote sensing business. The important issues and trends governing the future of that marketplace will be identified and discussed. A base-line forecast produced by synergistically extrapolating the effects of those trends and issues will be presented. Finally, some possible alternatives to the base-line scenario will be considered.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91030©1988 AAPG Annual Convention, Houston, Texas, 20-23 March 1988.