US, Mexico Sign Deal on Sharing Satellite Data Directly

The United States and Mexico signed a deal Friday for Mexico to capture and process land-surface imagery and data directly from a U.S.-operated satellite. The agreement means Mexico will be able to get the raw information from the Landsat 8 satellite immediately instead of waiting for filtered data to be released by U.S. authorities. Mexico joins about a half dozen other countries that are already downloading such data directly from U.S. satellites, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said. Officials said that will yield benefits in areas including agriculture, geology, forestry, mapping and climate change research. It will also help Mexico improve monitoring of hurricanes such as last month's Patricia, a monster Category 5 storm that fortunately avoided making a direct blow on major population centers...more