Space America's commercial space program
Space America prepared a private sector land observing space system which includes a sensor system with eight spectral channels configured for stereoscopic data acquisition of four stereo pairs, a spacecraft bus with active three-axis stabilization, a ground station for data acquisition, preprocessing and retransmission. The land observing system is a component of Space America's end-to-end system for Earth resources management, monitoring and exploration. In the context of the Federal Government's program of commercialization of the US land remote sensing program, Space America's space system is characteristic of US industry's use of advanced technology and of commercial, entrepreneurial management. Well before the issuance of the Request for Proposals for Transfer of the United States Land Remote Sensing Program to the Private Sector by the US Department of Commerce, Space Services, Inc., the managing venturer of Space America, used private funds to develop and manage its sub-orbital launch of its Conestoga launch vehicle.