-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Satellite Imagery Available
Date:   Tue, 20 Mar 2007 12:37:07 -0400
From:   ucgis <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Angela Cope <[log in to unmask]>

Mike Goodchild at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has
passed along the following information from David Siegel at UCSB, for
the UCGIS Listserve:


SUBJECT:  Announcement of availability of low-cost SPOT imagery for US
academic institutions

  Dear Colleague,

As I am sure you are aware, there is presently a lapse in the
availability of high-quality Landsat imagery.  In an effort to address
this gap, UCSB, in conjunction with Terra Image, USA, established the
SPOT at UCSB program to provide U.S. educational institutions
high-resolution SPOT imagery for the U.S. and Canada at a reasonable cost.


SPOT satellite imagery has many of the same characteristics as Landsat
imagery and the constellation of SPOT satellites can be programmed to
acquire imagery for a particular site and time.  Like Landsat, there is
a rich archive of historical imagery dating back to 1986.  The problem
with utilizing SPOT imagery has been price - retail prices are several
to many thousands of dollars per scene.  Hence, SPOT satellite imagery
has not been affordable for most academic users.  The SPOT at UCSB
program reduces the per scene cost by 80 to 89% compared with retail
prices (discounted to $299

- $999), but does require an annual institution-level subscription fee
of $9,999. The yearly subscription fee is recovered with the purchase of
as few as two scenes. The SPOT at UCSB program attempts to make SPOT
imagery more affordable for U.S. educational institutions and also
allows participants to target acquisition of SPOT imagery for their
study sites.  It is our mission to both address the Landsat data gap and
enable U.S. academic researchers and their students to use SPOT
satellite data in innovative ways.


Further information about the SPOT at UCSB program is available in the
attached pdf, at our website (www.spot.ucsb.edu) or by phone at (805)
893-8475.


Best,

David A. Siegel
Director, SPOT at UCSB
University of California
Santa Barbara, California  93106-3060