Last week the President instructed the Department of Commerce to seek firm proposals from private industry to take over the government's remote-sensing satellites.

However, due to the absence of remote-sensing satellite and other technology, only storms that affected populated land areas or encountered ships at sea were recorded; therefore, the actual total could be higher.

Storm Image Gallery NASA's natural disaster prediction capability relies in part on its remote-sensing satellites.

In this area there is a lot of interest for communications and remote-sensing satellites.

He is the administrator of the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, which runs all the US's remote-sensing satellites.

The outer space committee of the United Nations believes that remote-sensing satellites with a resolution of 25 m could be militarily useful.

It launched a French remote-sensing satellite, SPOT, to compete directly with Landsat in mapping and producing detailed images of the earth.

Prospecting potential mining sites, a vital area of concern for the mining industry is now done using sophisticated new technologies such as seismic prospecting and remote-sensing satellites.

Complicating the whole issue is the fact that the US is still deciding on the future for all its remote-sensing satellites.

Alternatively, the information obtained from a remote-sensing satellite could be inappropriate for a developing country if the sensors on board the vehicle are tailored only to the different requirements of industrialised nations.