Pléiades is an optical observation system consisting of two identical satellites that deliver 50cm colour imagery.
Operating 180 degrees apart on a phased orbit, the Pléiades constellation affords a daily revisit capability on any point of the globe, to better address civilian and military requirements. The constellation consists of Pléiades 1A launched 16th December 2011 and was later joined by Pléiades 1B launched 2nd December 2012.
The satellites were designed by the French-Italian ORFEO program (Optical & Radar Federated Earth Observation), with urgent tasking in mind where images can be requested from the Pléiades satellites less than six hours before they are acquired. This functionality will prove invaluable in situations where the expedited collection of new image data is crucial, such as crisis monitoring.
Features and Benefits
- Daily revisit capacity.
- Has a wide swath width of 20 km at nadir.
- Acquisition of stereo and tri-stereo 70 cm resolution imagery within an 800 km wide ground strip.
- High resolution imagery for applications such as topography, farming and land planning, maritime surveillance, forest management, mining exploration and many more.
Technical Specifications
Specification | Details |
Satellites | 2 (Pléiades 1A and Pléiades 1B) |
Orbit | Sun-synchronous and offset by 180 degrees apart |
Altitude | 694km |
Spatial Resolution | Panchromatic 0.5m (resampled) Multispectral 2m (resampled) |
Accuracy | 3 m CE90 |
Spectral Bands | Panchromatic: 470 – 830 nm Blue: 430 – 550 nm Green: 500 – 620 nm Red: 590 – 710 nm Near infrared: 740 – 940 nm |
Stereo Available | Yes – Stereo and Tri-Stereo |
Largest Scale | 1:2000 |
Dynamic Range | 12 bit |
Coverage: | Combined satellites up to 1m km² per day |