What's your career path?
A lot of remote sensing folks come out of geography degrees into specialist Masters' programs. The use cases are all the various things you'd use high resolution aerial maps for. To be clear most of the scientists are users of this data, rather than the creators. Historically there were more computer vision scientists involved, but we've mostly solved the big problems like image stitching and camera calibration. Then GPS came along and solved the geo-referencing problem as well.
Most academics just buy their data or get it from a space agency, do some analysis in GIS software and get on with answering their research questions. There is still a healthy research field in remote sensing, but fewer people worry about the collection side. There are also plenty of people involved from the space side of things, but again, unless you're on an instrument team you're a consumer not a creator.
So the career path depends. Typically degree in geography with a specialism in remote sensing, then into a career with an appropriate company. Most of the airborne cameras are produced by large orgs like Leica Geosystems. Also look at Hexagon AB who have bought up just about everyone else.
The people that generate this data tend to be small companies who own a plane (or three) kitted out with expensive surveying cameras. They are then contracted to fly over places and they provide calibrated (ortho-rectified, geo-referenced, etc) data to the client. Depending on the budget and requirements, this can include (multispectral) imagery and/or LIDAR mapping.
If you're interested in camera development that spans the engineering gamut from electrical (sensors) to optical. There are also aeronautical engineers and of course pilots. Nowadays if you have some machine learning knowledge, you're probably useful.
Programmer/sysadmin type, the aerial surveying was for fun in my 20's.