NEMA - the national emergency management agency - received "user status" from the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters earlier this month.
The satellites have already been used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade during the response to the lethal landslides in Papua New Guinea in May.
The charter is a venture between 17 space agencies currently run out of Canada and Germany.
Ottowa recently allocated more than $1 billion to its space agency.
New Zealand had help from the charter satellites twice in 2011 following the Christchurch quake and the Rena oil spill off the coast of Tauranga.
The charter sent NEMA a user guide on July 3 "in case your organisation requests a charter activation for support to a major disaster in your country", an Official Information Act response shows.
Joining the charter group was a key objective following Cyclone Gabrielle, NEMA said.
"Activating [it] ... is crucial for accessing freely available data during immediate response periods."
