In our last edition of 2016, we stopped in France with a look at a modern stadium and for our first 2017 edition of the Pléiades 1 Stadium of the Month, we travel back to the States with a look at one of college football’s iconic arenas, Spartan Stadium.

A 50-cm color image of Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Michigan collected on September 14, 2016 by Pléiades 1B. To see this stadium in SPOT 6/7 1.5-meter resolution, check out this month’s feature on SPOTMaps. This image has custom processing and color balancing applied by Apollo Mapping. © CNES 2017, Distribution Airbus Defense and Space / Spot Image S.A., France, all rights reserved.

Name & Its Origin: Michigan State University’s mascot is the Spartan and since 1956, their football stadium has been appropriately (but not creatively) named Spartan Stadium.

Location: Spartan Stadium is located in the central Michigan city of East Lansing on the campus of Michigan State University. The stadium is nearly equidistant from three of America’s Great Lakes, i.e. Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, at about 840 feet above sea level.

Stadium Capacity/Size, Architect & Build Date: Michigan State’s football stadium officially opened in 1923 with a capacity of just 14,000 seats. Over its 93-year life time, Spartan Stadium has been renovated and expanded multiple times. In 2012, the university committed more than $34 million to Spartan Stadium for improved gates and entryways, video screens and scoreboards as well as the sound system and training facilities. Today, the stadium has a capacity of 75,005 fans.

Type of Field Surface: When opened, Spartan Stadium featured a natural grass field but in 1969 this was replaced with artificial turf. Then in 2002, the field returned to natural grass. The current field was apparently grown in Colorado at Graff’s Turf Farms and features four varieties of Kentucky bluegrass.

Key Sports Teams: Spartan Stadium is football country and so the only sports team that plays here is the Spartan’s men’s football team who is admittedly having an off-year with a final 2016 record of 3 wins and 9 loses.

Most Popular Yearly Event: Any home Michigan State football game is the event of the week, and year after year the annual attendance ranks in the league’s Top 20. It appears that some other smaller events and even converts are hosted here but there are few if any details on them.

Fun Factoids: (1) Since 1957, Spartan Stadium has hosted 167 sold out football games. (2) It took three days and 26 refrigerated trucks to deliver new sod to the stadium in 2011 from Colorado. (3) The south and north video screens at Spartan Stadium cover a combined 13,300 square feet and the south end zone structure stands some 130 feet tall!

The Pléiades 1 High-Resolution Satellite Constellation

The Pléiades 1 constellation (or at least part of it!) has been in orbit since December 2011 and if you have not had a chance to check out any sample imagery, take a few moments and have a look at the gallery on our website. If you work with high resolution imagery, you should consider Pléiades 1 for your next geospatial project.

A variety of Pléiades 1 products are available from both a growing archive and as a new collection, including 50-centimeter (cm) pansharpened imagery and 50-cm panchromatic – 2-meter (m) 4-band multispectral bundles. We are happy to discuss the technical specifications, pricing and tasking options available with this satellite constellation.

Working with Pléiades 1 since the launch of the first twin satellite, P1A, we have noticed that:

• Airbus Defense and Space is able to deliver on their tasking feasibilities.

The Apollo Mapping sales team can answer any questions you might have about the high resolution satellite constellation, Pléiades 1. We can be reached anytime at (303) 993-3863 or sales@apollomapping.com.

More sample images and technical information about Pléiades 1A and 1B can be found on our website here.