In July we checked out a newer stadium in Florida used in Major League Soccer, and for this edition of the Pléiades 1 – Pléiades Neo Stadium of the Month we jump across the Atlantic Ocean with a look at a smaller stadium in a rural Danish town, i.e. MCH Arena.

A 30-cm color image of MCH Arena in Herning, Denmark collected on September 22, 2021 by Pléiades Neo 3; and then a 50-cm Pléiades 1A image of the same stadium collected on September 1, 2021. These images have custom processing and color balancing applied by Apollo Mapping.PLÉIADES © CNES 2022.

A quick update here for our readers on the 30-cm Pléiades Neo constellation! As of now, plans are on track for Pléiades Neo 5 and 6 to launch in September with expected commercialization of the data by the end of 2022. When fully operational, the 30-cm Pléiades Neo constellation will collect some 2 million square kilometers of imagery per day with the ability to image locations twice per day.

About the Stadium: MCH Arena is located on the south side of Herning, Denmark – a town of about 50,000 residents some 34 miles (54 kilometers) from the Atlantic Ocean. The vision for MCH Arena goes back to November 2000 when the CEO of Messecenter Herning A/S (known as MCH Group A/S now) submitted a plan to the city that included a new stadium – and shortly thereafter, a newly formed Danish football (soccer) club, FC Midtjylland, agreed to call it home when constructed. Ground broke on April 2, 2003 and the 11,535-seat stadium was completed by March 2004 for a cost of about $13 million. MCH Arena features a natural grass pitch which is a mixture of Smooth-stalked meadow-grass and Ryegrass 4turf.

Fun Factoids: (1) Herning is set to host the 2022 ECCO FEI World Championships from August 6th to the 14th. Theis event is the world championship for equestrian jumping, dressage and vaulting; and is expected to draw more than 200,00 visitors watching around 550 athletes from 70 plus countries compete. The championships for jumping and dressage will be held at MCH Arena. (2) Over the years, the stadium has had several names, most recently SAS Arena, but when Scandinavian Airlines’ naming sponsorship ended in 2010, the name was changed to MCH Arena – short for MesseCenterHerning who are the owners of the stadium still. (3) FC Midtjylland plays in the Danish Superliga which, according to this ranking, is one of Europe’s mid-tier professional leagues. At the time of drafting this article, FC Midtjylland stood in second place in the league, just three points behind FC Copenhagen. (4) According to this news story, the grass field at MCH Arena was destroyed in 2013, the last time it hosted a championship equestrian competition; so it seems likely that they will be installing a new pitch again in the next few years!

The 50-cm 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 and Pléiades Neo for your next geospatial projects.

A variety of Pléiades 1 products are available from both a well-established 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 both of these satellite constellations.

The 30-cm Pléiades Neo High-Resolution Satellite Constellation

Pléiades Neo is our newest high-resolution satellite constellation. The first Neo satellite went up in April 2021 and the second in August of the same year. This 30-centimeter resolution constellation will add two more satellites in the next few years and upgrade from daily to intraday revisits. Pléiades Neo has six multispectral bands with 1.2-meter resolution, including a deep blue and two infrared bands, along with a 30-centimeter resolution panchromatic band. 

The archive is growing every day, and the satellites are available for new collections, making Pléiades Neo the perfect solution for site monitoring. Check out our beautiful sample images in the Pléiades Neo gallery.

More sample images and technical information about Pléiades 1 can be found on our website here; while the same can be found here for the Pléiades Neo constellation.

The Apollo Mapping sales team can answer any questions you might have about Pléiades 1 and/or Pléiades Neo. We can be reached at (303) 993-3863 or sales@apollomapping.com.