Abstract: In order to solve the ill-conditioned problem of the normal equation in the exterior orientation for linear pushbroom imagery, the combined ridge-stein combined estimator (CRS) is presented. After a brief introduction on the CRS estimator, focus is put on its application in the linear pushbroom imagery exterior orientation. Experiments are performed using one 10meter SPOT 1 panchromatic image and one 5meter SPOT 5 panchromatic image. The experimental results show that the CRS estimator is a perfect algorithm for linear pushbroom exterior orientation with high reliability and accuracy.