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Pleiades
Pleiades has been observing and mapping Earth’s surface at a resolution of just 70 cm every day since December 2011. Comprising the Pleiades 1A and Pleiades 1B satellites, this space imaging system complements the capabilities of the SPOT satellites, which have a wider field of view than Pleiades but lower spatial resolution. What’s more, as Pleiades 1A and 1B are in the same orbit, together they can image anywhere on Earth in less than 24 hours. Pleiades imagery is used for both civil and military applications, for example to track urban expansion, monitor the planet’s active volcanoes or assist road and railway routing, and to locate adversaries’ military installations for mission planning. Pleiades’ key asset is an extremely sensitive optical instrument that reduces the exposure time needed for each image, giving each satellite the ability to acquire up to 500 images a day.
As prime contractor for the Pleiades system, CNES contracted with Airbus Defence & Space (former EADS Astrium Satellites) to build the satellites and with Thales Alenia Space for the optical instrument. In Europe, programme partners Austria, Belgium, Spain and Sweden were also involved in satellite construction. Pleiades was initially developed as part of the French-Italian ORFEO programme (Optical and Radar Federated Earth Observation), of which it is the optical component and COSMO-Skymed (Italy) is the radar component.
Mission's news feed
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Turkey, first images of the earthquake by the Pleiades satellites
The images acquired by the Pleiades satellites under the Charter show the extent of the damage and are used to produce documented maps that are very useful to rescue teams in...
February 13, 2023
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19TH VEGA MISSION TO ORBIT PLEIADES NEO 4 SATELLITE AND FOUR CUBESATS
August 12, 2021
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Floods in Japan, CNES activates Pleiades satellites to aid relief efforts
July 12, 2018