OSCAR is an acronym for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio. OSCAR series amateur radio satellites use amateur radio frequency allocations to facilitate communication between amateur radio stations.

These satellites can be used for free by licensed amateur radio operators for voice (FM, SSB) and data communications (AX.25, packet radio,APRS). Currently over 20 fully operational satellites in orbit act as repeaters, linear transponders or store and forward digital relays.

Throughout the years OSCAR satellites have helped make breakthroughs in the science of satellite communications. A few advancements include the launch of the first satellite voice transponder (OSCAR 3) and the development of highly advanced digital "store-and-forward" messaging transponder techniques. To date, over 70 OSCARs have been launched with more to be launched in the future.

MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates Ltd (MDA) is a Canadian aerospace, information services and products company, employing over 3000 people throughout Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, under the MDA brand name.

It is headquarted in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada.

MDA provides commercial customers, industrial partners and governments (civil, defense, security, space, and R&D agencies) with information systems and solutions like: 

• Space robotics, satellite, and payload systems;
• Earth observation, airborne, surveillance, intelligence, and environmental monitoring;
• Radar and optical satellite imagery, and remote sensing;
• Mapping products.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, or SSTL, is a spin-off company of the University of Surrey, now (July 2012) fully owned by EADS Astrium, that builds and operates small satellites.
Its satellites began as amateur radio satellites known by the UoSAT (University of Surrey SATELLITE) name, or by an OSCAR (Orbital Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) designation. SSTL cooperates with the University's Surrey Space Centre, which does research into satellite and space topics.

SSTL has moved into remote sensing services with the launch of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) and an associated child company, DMC International Imaging. SSTL also adopted the Internet Protocol for the DMC satellites it builds and operates, migrating from use of the AX.25 protocol popular in amateur radio. The CLEO Cisco router in Low Earth Orbit, on board the UK-DMC satellite along with a network of payloads, takes advantage of this adoption of the Internet Protocol. The UK-DMC satellite also carries a payload investigating GPS reflectometry.

RapidEye AG was a German geospatial information provider focused on assisting in management decision-making through services based on their own Earth observation imagery. The company owns a five satellite constellation producing 5 meter resolution imagery that was designed and implemented by MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) of Richmond, Canada. Originally located in Munich, the company relocated 60 km southwest of Berlin to Brandenburg an der Havel in 2004.

Applications
RapidEye provides geospatial information-based management solutions to the following industries: agriculture, forestry, environment, spatial solutions.

Satellites
Five Identical Satellites: Built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) of Guildford, subcontracted by MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA). Each satellite is based on an evolution of the flight-proven SSTL-100 bus, and measures less than one cubic meter and weighs 150 kg (bus + payload).

On November 6, 2013 RapidEye has officially changed its name to BlackBridge.

Spot Image is a French public limited company created in 1982 by the French Space Agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the IGN, and Space Manufacturers (Matra, Alcatel, SSC, etc.). It is now (year 2012) a subsidiary of EADS Astrium (99%).

The company is the commercial operator for the SPOT Earth observation satellites.

Spot Image is a worldwide distributor of products and services using imagery from Earth observation satellites and works through a network of subsidiaries, local offices (Australia, Brazil, China, United States, Japan, Peru, Singapore), and partners. The goal is to provide on-the-spot service with worldwide availability.
Spot Image works with a network of more than 30 direct receiving stations handling images acquired by the SPOT satellites.

Satellite Imaging Corporation (SIC) is the official Value Added Reseller (VAR) of imaging and geospatial data products for:

• GeoEye
• RapidEye
• SPOT Image

IKONOS is a commercial earth observation satellite, and was the first to collect publicly available high-resolution imagery at 1-meter and 4-meter resolution. It offers multispectral (MS) and panchromatic (PAN) imagery.

IKONOS imagery began being sold on January 1, 2000. 

It derived its name from the Greek term eikōn for image.

It is operated by GeoEye.

GeoEye Inc. (formerly Orbital Imaging Corporation or ORBIMAGE) is a commercial satellite imagery company based in Herndon, Virginia, USA.

GeoEye operates its own fleet of Earth observation satellites, which provide visible and near-infrared images of land and sea at resolutions below 1 m.

GeoEye provides 253,000,000 square kilometres of satellite map images to Microsoft and Yahoo! search engines. Google has exclusive online mapping use of the new GeoEye-1 satellite. It is a major supplier to the USA National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

GeoEye's headquarters are in Herndon, Virginia. Satellite Operations are conducted in Herndon, Virginia and in Thornton, Colorado. The location in Saint Louis, Missouri provides additional image processing. There are multiple ground stations located worldwide.
GeoEye's primary competitors are DigitalGlobe and Spot Image.

The company was founded in 1992 as a division of Orbital Sciences Corporation in the wake of the 1992 Land Remote Sensing Policy Act which permitted private companies to enter the satellite imaging business. The division was spun off in 1997. It changed its name to GeoEye in 2006 after acquiring Denver, Colorado-based Space Imaging. Space Imaging was founded and controlled by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Its principal asset was the IKONOS satellite.

IRS-P3 is an Indian experimental Earth Observation mission, considered to be pre-operational and serving in parallel for technology evaluation and scientific methodology studies.

It was launched by PSLV-D3 on March 21, 1996 from SHAR Centre, Sriharikota, India. IRS-P3 carries two remote sensing payloads - Wide Field Sensor (WiFS) similar to that of IRS-1C, with an additional Short Wave Infrared Band (SWIR) and a Modular Opto-electronic Scanner (MOS). It also carries an X-ray astronomy payload and a C-band transponder for radar calibration. 

Mission completed during January 2006 after serving 9 years and 10 months.