For a given aperture there's a limit to the angular resolution you can get which means you can only see objects above a certain size from orbit. The highest res

For a given aperture there's a limit to the angular resolution you can get which means you can only see objects above a certain size from orbit. The highest resolution we had in 2013 had a resolution of ~.3m/pixel. That's too large for anything beyond rough mapping for things like landing or a vague plan for driving. TL;DR a decent camera at <1km is hard to beat from >100km no matter how good the satellite camera is. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1140/whats-the-highest-resolution-camera-orbiting-mars-as-of-2013 https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1140/whats-the-hig...