Visitors to the office

We had a couple of visitors to our office today. The federal-civilian rep and his main customer service representative for SPOT Image, Corp. (in Chantilly, VA, not Toulouse, France, where the headquarters are) were making a trip to Denver and decided to add a leg to SLC just to visit our office.

We used to use SPOT a lot more than we do now. Of the 140 satellite images I purchased last year for fire support, none were SPOT images. Most were Landsat (5 or 7), ASTER, and AWiFS. The biggest constraint to SPOT imagery is the cost - we paid $10,000 for a SPOT 5 scene with all the priority programming and rush delivery. With the Landsat Data Continuity Mission in question due to sensor failures, SPOT is making a push to be a filler sensor. Both they and AWiFS make compelling arguments. I'm curious to hear who wins out. If SPOT wins, they'll set up a receiving station at EROS in Sioux Falls, SD, and allow EROS to distribute the imagery. We'll see.

Anyway, the SPOT representatives made an interesting proposal to us. They mentioned that they are considering establishing a disaster service program for things like hurricane and wildfire support. This program would be subscription based and probably cheaper. That is quite appealing to us. The idea is that we pay a flat fee (like $50,000) and then have the right to purchase X number of images with over X number of years with all the emergency processing and delivery. I'd certainly be more apt to use SPOT imagery if this was the case.

The one problem that remains with SPOT imagery is the lack of a longer SWIR band like Landsat band 7. The dNBR algorithm we use for our fire mapping uses a near infrared band and a SWIR band (2.08 - 2.35 micrometers). SPOT has a shorter SWIR band (1.55-1.75~ micrometers) and the algorithm doesn't work as well.