Pléiades 1B, the second dual-use, very-high-resolution satellite in the Pléiades family built by Astrium for the French space agency CNE...
Pléiades 1B, the second dual-use, very-high-resolution satellite in the Pléiades family built by Astrium for the French space agency CNES (prime contractor for the system and system architect), has left the AstriumSatellites facilities in Toulouse en route for its launch site in French Guiana.
Pléiades 1B will be lifting off at the end of November 2012 on board a Soyuz launch vehicle from the Sinnamary site at the Guiana Space Centre (CSG).
Pléiades 1B will be joining its twin, the Pléiades 1A satellite, which has given full satisfaction since its launch last December, at an altitude of 695 km in the same quasi-polar heliosynchronousorbit. Like its twin, Pléiades 1B will provide 50-centimeter products over a 20-kilometer footprint to the French and Spanish defence ministries, civil institutions, and to private users through Astrium Services, the exclusive distributor of Pléiades products for the civil market.
The Pléiades satellites offer major operational advantages to users thanks to their incomparableimage acquisition capabilities (up to 900 images/day, daily revisit of a point anywhere in the world) combined with remarkable agility (rapid pointing), which makes it possible to image points out to 1500 km either side of nadir in multiple acquisition modes (stereo, mosaic, corridor, target).
Pléiades’ stereo and tristereo capability makes it possible to generate digital elevation modelling (DEM) products with a 1-metre or 4-metre posting, ideal for 3D modelling of urban areas and relief.
It is based on smaller, cheaper, more agile satellites than its predecessors, highly successful Spot series of satellites which have operated an uninterrupted service since 1986 and whose platform is currently also in use for nearly all European Low Earth Observation programmes (notably ERS , Envisat , MetOp and Helios ). Pléiades incorporates innovative technology suchas the gyroscopic actuators that will be carried for the first time in Europe on board the Pléiades satellites to provide unprecedented performance.
The two Pléiades satellites form the optical component of the dual civil/military French–Italian observation system Orfeo (Italy is supplying the COSMO-SkyMed radar component).
