An Earth observation satellite, SPOT 7, which was launched in July this year and was built by Airbus, is now available for commercial use.
Together with its earlier variants ,SPOT 6, Pléiades 1A & 1B, TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X, the new satellte allows Airbus Defence and Space to offer customers a full palette of satellite imagery data spanning multiple resolution and spectral wavelengths.
As SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 will be functioning as a couple, the overall acquisition capacity is boosted to six million square kilometers per day which is equivalent to the land mass of France.
This means that every day, every point on the globe can be viewed both in high-resolution by a SPOT satellite and in very high-resolution by a Pleiades satellite.
While the two couple satellites can cover wide areas with a resolution of 1.5m, Pleiades 1A and 1B focus on more targeted zones with a greater level of detail (50cm products). And for guaranteed monitoring, surface motion or for frequently cloud covered areas, TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X can dependably acquire very high-resolution (from 0.25m to 40m products) and wide-area radar images independent of the weather conditions.
Airbus has established a new cooperation with the Azerbaijani satellite operator firm, Azercosmos, and it is expected that the two firms will be utilizing the satellites in a joint venture. The deal has been reported to be a long-term cooperation that will include transfer of ownership of the SPOT 7 satellite to Azercosmos, the provision of a ground segment for the exploitation of the satellite, and a training program for operational capacities development. It also encloses a commercial agreement related to the distribution of SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 data to respective customers of both parties.
Airbus Defence and Space will continue to provide full access to the SPOT 6 and 7 capacities and as it continues to deliver commercial satellite imagery service to its customers globally.
Leave a Reply