Аннотация:In the context of the development of methods for estimating parameters of the state of the soil/vegetation system from space, the paper discusses the characteristics of the use of an atmospheric correction procedure in thematic interpretation of remote-sensing data. The accuracy with which the phytomass of vegetation is recovered from multispectral satellite images is estimated. Results of the processing of high-resolution images from Kosmos 1939 for April and August 1989 are given, which demonstrate new possibilities for studies of the biosphere from space.