Spot satellite

Background
-Initiated by the French space agency CNES in 1977 and run by
Spot Image, based in Toulouse, France,
SPOT was the first European Earth-observation satellite
programme. The series was developed in association with Belgian
and Swedish institutions. The SPOT (Satellite Pour l’Observation
de la Terre) series under CNES operated five satellites between
1986 and 2015
CNES continued the legacy of the original five SPOT satellites
with the Pléiades satellites, offering improved imaging
capabilities.
-Airbus Defence and Space continued with the SPOT series when
CNES ended their programme in 2015. Airbus' commercial SPOT
6 and seven satellites, launched in 2012 and 2014 
-The SPOT satellites each have twin high resolution visible
(HRV) imaging systems, which can be operated independently
and simultaneously. Each HRV is capable of sensing either in a
high spatial resolution single-channel panchromatic
(PLA) mode, multispectral (MLA) mode
-The viewing angle of the sensors can be adjusted to look to
either side of the satellite's vertical (nadir) track, allowing off-
nadir viewing which increases the satellite's revisit capability.
This ability to point the sensors up to 27° from nadir, allows
SPOT to view within a 950 km swath and to revisit any location
several times per week. As the sensors point away from nadir, the
swath varies from 60 to 80 km in width.
Types
• SPOT 2 launched 1990, still going)
•SPOT 3 launched 1993 and stopped functioning 1996
•SPOT 4 launched in 1998, still going
•SPOT 5 scheduled for April 2002
-Orbit : near polar(LEO) -Height:694 km -weight: 720kg acquisition capacity: SPOT 6/7 constellation
(very compact) has an impressive acquisition capacity of 6
-Inclination angel: 98.7 degrees million square kilometres per day
-Sun-synchronous -Swath width: 60km
-Detectors: PAN array assembly: 28,000 pixels -Updated every 4hrs (reactivity)
MS array assembly: 4 x 7000 pixel
-Stereo Capability: Single pass stereo and tri-stereo(Fore, -Orthorectified prodcut
Nadir and Aft mode)
-Optical system : One instrument made of 2 identical Korsch -Spaceborne platform
telescopes,each with a 200 mm aperture, delivering the expected
swath. -passive sensors
Image resolution Spot6&7
Spatial resolution
They offer a higher resolution of 2.5 to 5 meters in
panchromatic mode
10 meters in multispectral mode (20 metre on short wave
infrared 1.58 – 1.75 µm).

Spectral resolution
Panchromatic: 0.450-0.745μm
-1.5m at nadir
-Resolution 10m
-pixels per line: 6000

Multispectral:
Other Instruments
Blue: 0.450-0.520μm
The VEGETATION instrument is carried on board
Green: 0.530-0.590μm SPOT 7
Red: 0.625-0.695μm . This instrument can cover almost all Earth's
Near-infrared: 0.760-0.890μm surface in a day because of its swath size of 2250 km.
-6m at nadir It captures reflected light in four spectral bands
-Resolution 20m (blue, red, near-infrared, and middle-infrared).
-pixels per line :3000

Rediometric resolution
-12 bits per pixel-4.096 level -8bits (rest of spot satellites)
Temporal resolution
1 day with SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 operating
simultaneously Between 1 and 3 days with only one
satellite
Types
Applications
1-Agri-environmental monitoring
2-Natural resource management
3-Natural mapping
4-3D modeling
5-Defence and security
6-Risk mangement and emergency response
7- topographic information
8-mapping (urban mapping)

Receiving Stations
Two main stations are located at Toulouse
(France) and Kiruna (Sweden)