From the change of a satellite images consumer to a holder of satellites, we are facing the challenge of evaluating the satellite and its payload technical criteria rather than images from satellite image vendors. With over tens of years of special application, the application experts have gained lots of experience to evaluate images instead of the criteria of a satellite. It is therefore necessary to bridge the gap between the satellite producing experts and the application experts, with the simulation of satellite imaging. The goal of the simulation is to connect the satellite and its payload technical criteria with the radiometric and geometric qualities of its images, and this technology will play a key role in the application assessment and the development of the application system in the phase of manufacturing the satellite. As the physical process of the imaging of an on-orbit satellite is very complicated, and perfect simulation of its imaging is a great challenge in both technology and engineering, the authors’ simulation technical framework focuses on the simulation of degeneration of the radiometric and geometric qualities of the images which constitute the fundamental criteria in land and resources management application. In this paper the authors have given a detailed description of the framework for digital simulation of the high resolution optical sensor and verified it with China-made 02B satellite equipped with a high resolution optical sensor of 2.4m ground sample resolution. A potentially improved simulation framework is also put forward.