Coming soon: Crisp images from new eye in the sky

Serene Luo, Straits Times 10 Jan 09;

IT MAY be 700km above the ground, but a new civilian satellite can pick out a man on a golf course or even the oars on a rowboat.

These images - said to be the most detailed commercial shots in the world - will soon be available from Singapore's Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing, or Crisp.

The research facility and satellite ground station - which also monitors forest fires and ocean pollution - has inked a multimillion-dollar deal with the company that owns the satellite to capture and sell the images.

They will come from the GeoEye 1, launched into space on Sept 6 last year. Its makers say the eye in the sky can 'see' items just 50cm large on the ground.

Crisp will be the only commercial outfit in South-east Asia to offer these satellite images to worldwide clients, its director Kwoh Leong Keong said.

Though traditionally used by the military and government, satellite images have become popular in other industries as people find more uses for the images.

Researchers use them to track climate change or forest fires, while architects use them to plan urban areas. Businessmen use them to keep tabs on their land or to track buildings by their competition.

The system could also be used by disaster relief groups to track homes and roads destroyed by earthquakes, floods and typhoons.

A spokesman for the Singapore Red Cross said it is planning to use images from the satellite. Field workers and planners would find higher-resolution images helpful, especially if they were timely enough to reflect what was happening on the ground, the spokesman said.

Geographer Avijit Gupta, a visiting scientist from the University of Leeds, uses satellite images in his research into rivers. He is contemplating using the GeoEye and said the satellite might help him identify even small shrubs, which can say a lot about a waterway.

'For instance, on beaches which have been destroyed by natural disasters, maybe we can tell if similar vegetation is coming back after some years,' he said.

Before this, satellite images for sale here could only zoom in and see objects that were bigger than 1m.

Until recently, US government guidelines had prevented American satellite owners, who had the most powerful equipment, from selling more detailed images to other countries, Mr Kwoh said.

Charges for the new shots will start from S$37 per sq km for images.

Despite the resolution of the cameras, Crisp said privacy and security would not be compromised. It is 'impossible to recognise people' at the 50cm resolution, and this is considered outside the threshold of personal privacy, a Crisp spokesman said.

Also, in Singapore, images of the Republic are subject to clearance and censorship by the police before they can be delivered to customers.