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Are there samples of 5 cm per pixel or better resolution satellite imagery especially for a city or urban area ( street view level)?

Also are there providers of 5 cm per pixel satellite imagery for cities in Asia and Middle East that I can buy from and more important if they have such imagery available for selling to general public?

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  • where have you looked already?
    – Spacedman
    Commented Jul 30, 2016 at 8:07
  • What image providers have you spoken to already? Commented Jul 30, 2016 at 8:59

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There is no satellite with a 5cm resolution. The best one that is available is 30cm (worldview 3, panchromatic). There are rumors that the military/secret service still have better ones in orbit (11. june this year there was the biggest available rocket starting with confidential payload if you like conspiracy). But the physics is a problem here. The optics would be either huge (no rocket to transport them) or the they would be in a really low orbit. In low orbit the atmosphere is still braking them a bit and you need lots of fuel to keep them there. That leads to expensive missions and satellites that are only flying for a few month. Nothing commercial.

The only way for 5cm are aerial images. And no country is flying 5cm for the whole area. Some cities with money and interest in tourism (that I know of here in Germany) have 2-3cm pictures but you have to check each city on its own and ask the municipalty.

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  • plus on top of that I think there's a restriction limit on the resolution
    – nickves
    Commented Aug 1, 2016 at 1:15
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I would like to add to @Matte's answer. The Raleigh criterion can be used to approximate the resolution as a function of the satellite's altitude, the diameter of the lens/mirror and the wavelength of the light being captured.

A satellite orbiting at 300 km, imaging in the visible wavelengths (let's say 5.5e-7 meters) could achieve 0.05 meter resolution with a mirror of diameter of just over 4 meters. The James Webb space telescope will have a diameter of 6.5 meters, so this is in fact physically achievable (although technically difficult and requiring different trade-offs in terms of on-the-ground image size, file size/data volume, etc.).

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On 30 Aug 2019, Donald Trump leaked a classified image taken from the USA 224 satellite. Experts have determined that the resolution of this satellite is at least 10cm. The image you see below was taken by a phone of a printout, so it is possible that resolution could be even better. While it's not 5cm and not available to the public, this is the closest sample you'll get for now since “US regulations prohibit commercial imagery better than .25-meter res and restricts it to specific wavelengths,”

USA 224 satellite image

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The best provided imagery from satellite is 20 - 25 cm per pixel

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