Abstract

In 1984 President Reagan announced that the U.S.A. intended to establish a space station in the 1990s. The programme then proposed by NASA involved the development of a low-orbit manned space station, a co-orbiting platform and at least two polar-orbiting platforms dedicated to remote sensing. Part of the announcement contained an invitation to other nations to participate in this venture. The response of ESA was the Columbus programme, within which the U.K. will probably take a leading role in the design and construction of one of the polar platforms. This paper looks at the background and justification for this remote sensing satellite in the context of a space station and then assesses the potential needs of part of the U.K. remote sensing community at the time of the satellite's launch.