Abstract: Satellite photogrammetry is an important way to obtain geospatial information of the earth, and it is also an effective way to solve the mapping issue for difficult areas in the world. The development process of optical surveying and mapping satellites are briefly summarized, and the optical surveying and mapping satellites of China are introduced in detail. After years of technological development, the results of optical photogrammetry satellites in China can meet the accuracy requirements of 1∶50 000 and 1∶10 000 scale surveying and mapping products. And the development status of optical surveying and mapping satellites are summarized, and the future development trends of surveying and mapping satellites are proposed, including on-board intelligent detection and storage, on-board and ground data intelligent processing, and multi-satellite network collaborative detection. With the support of global high-precision basic information data, the future photogrammetry satellites will be developed in the direction of an integrated, ubiquitous and intelligent type to improve the guarantee capability of surveying and mapping products.