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.

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).
  
 

Pléiades products Imagery products - 50-cm black and white - 50-cm colour - 2-m multispectral - Bundle: 50-cm B&W and 2-m multispectral   Spectral bands  P: 480-830 nm Blue: 430-550 nm  Green: 490-610 nm Red: 600-720 nm  Near Infrared : 750-950 nm Preprocessing levels - Sensor - Ortho Image location accuracy With ground control points Without ground control points 1 m 3 m (CE90) Imaging capacity Daily constellation capacity Strip mapping (mosaic) Stereo imaging Max. spots over 100 km x 200 km 1,000,000 sq.km. 100 km x 100 km 20 km x 280 km 30 (crisis mode)

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 an area of 1,000 km x 1,000 km, in a single pass, viewing about 20 spots with its sensors pointed less than 20° off track.

Real-time imaging capability:

• Example: a commercial mission in Europe might cover:
  > 40 spots of a diameter of 20 km covered in 1 orbit
  > Over an area of interest of 1,000 km x 1,000 km

 

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.