IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2020 - 17

MARCH 2020

IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE

trend. Cost reduction in data acquisition allows more share
for processing and service costs. Data providers offering
more services are a potential threat, along with the tendency
of some larger customers to prefer in-house solutions.
We expect that companies providing solutions for the
still existing challenges in surface-motion processing
from SAR, such as stable estimations of the quality of
the achieved results, will thrive. Processing the increasing amount of available SAR data is difficult, especially
in the stage of data ubiquity. Another critical point is the

TABLE 3. THE COMMERCIAL SAR SATELLITE DATA PROVIDERS.
NAME

HEADQUARTERS

SAR SENSORS

MAXAR

Canada

Radarsat, RCM

Airbus DS Geo

France/Germany

TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X

e-Geos

Italy

COSMO-SkyMed

ICEEYE

Finland

ICEEYE

Capella Space

United States

Capella SAR

RCM: radar constellation mission.

TABLE 4. THE COMMERCIAL INSAR SERVICE P
- ROVIDERS:
SMALL-MEDIUM ENTERPRISES FOCUSING ON INSAR
-SERVICES, LISTED BY NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES.
NAME

HEADQUARTERS

MAIN MARKET

EV-Image

China

TRE Altamira

Italy

Worldwide

Vastitude Technology

China

3V Geomatics

Canada

Worldwide

BSED

China

SkyGeo

The Netherlands

Europe/North
America

Dares

Spain

Worldwide

Hongdu Skysense

China

Neva Ridge

United States

Gamma

Switzerland

Worldwide

250

Imagery

Services

200
150
100
50

20
16
20
Q 17
2
20
Q 17
3
20
Q 17
4
20
Q 17
1
20
Q 18
2
20
Q 18
3
20
Q 18
4
20
Q 18
1
20
Q 19
2
20
19

This changed with the second phase. The availability of
data and, especially, commercial data and the ability to order data from individual areas of interest allowed for the
development of commercial applications and the growth of
the SAR market. High-resolution SAR data from the CosmoSkyMed and TerraSAR-X missions are often more suitable for
specific commercial applications, such as building monitoring [19], dam monitoring [65], or detailed landslide
analysis [47], [66], [67]. SAR became a commercial success.
The TanDEM mission, for example, is not only a scientific
achievement but also a commercial triumph through the
WorldDEM.
In terms of surface-motion monitoring, many public
entities and private companies have become interested in
using InSAR for urban subsidence monitoring and infrastructure stability surveillance. Several case studies and test
projects were started in this period all over the world. Not
all have been commercial successes, but, overall, a growing
service industry around InSAR formed in this phase. At the
end of phase two and the beginning of phase three, there
was also a certain amount of consolidation in the service
sector. Overall, the market for surface-motion estimation
from SAR was growing, but probably not fast enough for
some. At the end of phase two and the beginning of phase
three, service providers and other related parts of the industry were consolidating.
In the upcoming third phase, traditional data providers
will come under more pressure (Table 3). The free-data policy of the European Commission with Sentinel-1 data allows
for processing of medium-resolution SAR data for everyone,
free of data-acquisition costs. Additionally, new data providers, such as ICEEYE and Capella Space, will enter the market. Small satellites and constellations of small satellites providing SAR data might endanger the commercial success of
more traditional large-satellite providers (Table 4). It is hard
to predict the outcome as, with an expected general increase
in the market, the demand for high-resolution, high-quality
SAR data for precise InSAR processing might also increase. It
is expected that the previous yearly increase in revenue from
data of approximately 7% will drop to approximate 5% due
to decreasing prices, especially for medium- and low-resolution data. In response to these developments, some data
providers will try to get more involved in the service part of
the industry by offering value-added services.
Nevertheless, for big data providers, imagery is a main
business driver, and the increasing pressure of competition
from new commercial data providers and free-data policies
from noncommercial entities are felt by the big players. Figure 11 shows the revenue of the biggest data provider, MAXAR. The figures show the recent problems but also include
the merger of MDA and Digital Globe at the end of 2017,
leading to the new name MAXAR. Therefore, the numbers
should be interpreted with care, as these include effects
from the merger.
For the service industry, the increase in available data providers and the expected decrease in data costs are a promising

FIGURE 11. The revenue development of MAXAR regarding
imagery and service areas, derived from MAXAR financial reports.
Values are in millions of U.S. dollars. Q: quarter.

IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2020

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