The progress and development of remote sensing technique for earthobservation in the next 10 years makes data acquisition possible to be multi-sensor

multi-resolution

multi-spectral and multi-temporal.A number of earth observationsatellite programms will provide us with huge remote sensing data with different re-solution

different spectra throughout visible

infrared

themal infrared and microwave. These data build up a pyramid of image data for the investigation of globalchange

environment rnonitoring

resource surveying and disaster prevention. It is ne-cessary to develop an automatic and intelligent remote sensing data processing systemfor earth observation from space in order to use these data quickly and successfully inreal time or on time to answer the facing problems of geo-science research and hu-man social development and to exert the potentials of remote sensing in national eco-nomy development.Facing the real situation that the satellite application does notcatch up with the satellite launch and the software development does not catch upwith the hardware updating

this paper briefly describes the necessity and possibilityfor developing an automatic and intelligent remote sensing data processing system.The main goal of this system and the key technique points to be solved are also an-alyzed in the paper.We hope our government will pay more attention and put en-ough manpower and financial support frorn related departments into this project inorder to set up and improve Chinese Geo-Science information system to a higher levelin syntheic research and effective analysis of the earth and its environment.