Pleiades – Very-high-resolution satellite imagery

With the Pleiades constellation, comprising the Pleiades-1 and Pleiades-2 satellites, Spot Image is set to bring you satellite imagery at a resolution of 50 cm and with a footprint of 20 km x 20 km. 

• Daily revisits to any point on the globe 
• 50-cm orthorectified products 
• Configurable tasking services:
  • urgent tasking : up to 6 hours before image acquisition
  • direct tasking for receiving stations (less than 1 hour before satellite pass)
• Imaging swath of 20 km at nadir 
• Single-pass collection of mosaics (strip mapping) with a footprint of 100 km x 100 km
  • Near-real-time stereo and tri-stereo acquisition 
• Daily coverage of 1 million sq.km. 
• Exceptional image location accuracy: 3 m without ground control points 
• Four spectral bands (blue, green, red and infrared) for better natural-colour imaging 

Thanks to its great agility, Pléiades will ensure a minimum of tasking conflicts to better meet all users’ needs.
And to give you even more responsiveness, we will be uploading satellite workplans 3 times a day. 

This means users in all of the world’s major regions will be offered a daily imaging slot so they can submit requests for imagery only hours before acquisition by the Pléiades satellites. This unique tasking system will be operated through 3 ground stations in the Kerguelen Islands, Kiruna (Sweden) and Toulouse (France).
  
 

Data acquisition:

• 1,000,000 sq.km. per day
• 1 acquisition mode:
  Simultaneous panchromatic + multispectral acquisition.

Agility: 

• Roll :
  - 5° in 8 seconds
  - 10° in 10 seconds
  -  –30° to +30° in 25 seconds
• Along-track stereo and tri-stereo viewing
• Single-pass mosaic collection (strip mapping)

The diagram below shows the satellite’s ability to image a crisis point in a single pass. The results are obtained with a maximum authorized viewing angle of 20°.

Real-time imaging capability

• A crisis theatre of operations might cover:
  > 30 spots of a diameter of 20 km
  > Over an area of interest of 100 km x 200 km 
  
   

One of the main innovations of Pleiades is its ability to acquire high-resolution stereo imagery. Stereopairs are collected in a single pass, which means a uniform product is quickly available. 
 
As shown below, in addition to “standard” stereopair collection—2 images with an adjustable base/height (B/H) ratio—the system offers a tri-stereo acquisition capability with an extra near-nadir view to give you an image with full stereoscopic detail.

Pleiades’ great agility also affords the ability to extend its imaging swath artificially and instantaneously. 

The table below shows imaging swaths that can be achieved according to the user-defined sensor viewing angle.