Target Pillar: Earth Observation and Satellites

Last Updated: August 1, 2026 Author: Sarah Mitchell

Introduction

“High resolution” gets thrown around loosely in satellite imagery marketing, but the actual numbers span an enormous range — from free public imagery where a single pixel covers a 10-meter square of ground, to commercial imagery sharp enough to distinguish a car from a delivery van. Knowing what these resolution numbers actually mean, and which providers sell which tier, matters whether you’re evaluating a mapping tool, sourcing imagery for a project, or just trying to understand what a “satellite photo” in the news actually shows you.

What “Resolution” Actually Means Here

Satellite imagery resolution is usually expressed as ground sample distance (GSD) — the real-world size of the area one pixel represents. A 30cm resolution image means each pixel covers a 30-by-30 centimeter patch of ground. Smaller GSD numbers mean sharper, more detailed imagery; larger numbers mean coarser detail but typically wider coverage and lower cost.

This is a genuinely different concept from a camera’s megapixel count. A satellite image’s usefulness depends on GSD relative to what you’re trying to identify — 30cm resolution can distinguish a car’s general shape, but as one legal analysis of the industry puts it, that’s roughly the threshold where you can spot a car but not quite determine its make and model.

Free and Public Imagery: The 10–30 Meter Tier

At the accessible end, government-operated satellite programs provide free, openly licensed imagery. The two most widely used are NASA/USGS’s Landsat program, which has provided continuous Earth imagery since the 1970s at roughly 30-meter resolution, and the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites, which capture 10-meter imagery with a revisit time of just a few days across most of the globe.

This tier isn’t sharp enough to identify individual vehicles or buildings in detail, but it’s more than sufficient for large-scale monitoring — tracking deforestation, agricultural land use, urban sprawl, or wildfire extent over time. Because it’s free and openly licensed, it’s also the backbone of most academic and NGO environmental research, and it underpins much of the climate monitoring work described in our satellite climate tracking guide.

Mid-Tier Commercial: Daily Coverage Over Extreme Detail

Planet Labs occupies a distinctive middle position in the commercial market. Rather than chasing maximum resolution, its large constellation of small satellites is built around persistence — imaging the entire Earth’s landmass daily rather than capturing occasional ultra-detailed snapshots. As one industry comparison frames the tradeoff, Planet Labs’ central question is “how is this changing?” rather than “what exactly is happening here?” — the kind of temporal depth that suits crop monitoring, supply chain tracking, and change detection far better than one-off high-detail imagery would.

High-End Commercial: The 25–30cm Tier

At the sharp end of the commercial market sits Maxar Technologies, widely regarded as the resolution leader among Western commercial providers. Maxar’s satellites deliver native imagery around 30cm resolution, with processed “high-definition” products derived down to 15cm, sharp enough to distinguish vehicle types, road markings, and individual people in a still image. Maxar’s archive, dating back to 2000, is also one of the largest historical satellite image libraries in existence, adding millions of square kilometers of new imagery daily.

This resolution tier didn’t get here by accident — it’s the direct result of a specific, evolving U.S. regulatory limit, which is worth understanding because it explains why “25–30cm” has been such a persistent ceiling in commercial satellite marketing for over a decade.

Why 25–30cm Was the Ceiling for So Long

Commercial remote sensing satellites in the U.S. are licensed by NOAA under the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act, and for years that licensing process capped how sharp an image companies were legally allowed to sell. The limit wasn’t always 25cm — it started far coarser. NOAA’s original commercial resolution cap sat at 50cm, until Maxar’s WorldView-3 satellite was built to collect at 31cm resolution, prompting NOAA to lower the sellable limit to 25cm in 2014 specifically to accommodate it.

That 25cm ceiling held for years afterward, driven by national security concerns about foreign adversaries buying extremely detailed imagery of sensitive sites. It began loosening substantially in 2020, when NOAA shifted its regulatory philosophy — moving from indefinitely restricting each new capability to only temporarily restricting genuinely unique ones, for a maximum of three years, before competition from other countries’ satellites effectively made the restriction moot. By August 2023, NOAA had eliminated most remaining “Tier 3” restrictions altogether, allowing at least one SAR imagery provider, Umbra, to immediately begin selling 16cm resolution data that its satellites had been technically capable of for years but were previously barred from distributing commercially, according to SpaceNews’ reporting on the change.

Why the Ceiling Existed at All

The underlying concern was straightforward: extremely detailed imagery of military bases, troop movements, or critical infrastructure available for purchase by literally anyone — including foreign governments — was considered a national security risk. The 2020 regulatory framework attempted to balance that concern against U.S. companies losing ground to competitors abroad who faced no equivalent restriction, essentially concluding that restricting American companies alone, once matched capability existed elsewhere, protected nothing while handicapping domestic industry.

This tension hasn’t fully disappeared. Non-U.S. providers, including several Chinese-operated systems, now market native resolutions as sharp as 25cm without the same licensing constraints U.S. companies historically faced — a dynamic that continues to shape competition in the commercial imagery market.

What You Can Actually Do With Purchased Imagery

Buying satellite imagery doesn’t typically mean you can republish it freely. Licensing terms from major commercial providers like Maxar and Airbus commonly restrict usage to a specific project, and often only permit publishing rendered maps built from the imagery rather than the raw source imagery itself. Terms vary significantly by provider and by whether a license is issued to an individual user or an organization, so checking the specific terms of service before republishing any purchased satellite image is essential — this is a common and costly mistake for anyone building a product or publication around licensed imagery.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Sources

1. Esri / Maxar — Satellite Imagery Partner Solution
2. OnGeo Intelligence — Maxar vs. Planet Labs Comparison
3. Apollo Mapping — NOAA Restrictions Lifted (regulatory history)
4. Office of Space Commerce — NOAA Eliminates Restrictive Operating Conditions
5. SpaceNews — NOAA Lifts Many Commercial Remote Sensing License Conditions
6. American University Business Law Review — Remote-Sensing Satellites and Privacy
7. Satsummit — State of Satellite Imagery Licensing

Note on methodology: resolution figures and licensing details reflect provider-published specifications and government regulatory announcements as of mid-2026. Commercial imagery pricing, licensing terms, and available resolution tiers change as regulations and competition evolve — verify current terms directly with providers before purchasing.