Last month we checked out the site of a key mid-season baseball match up in the Major League, and for the July edition of the Pléiades 1 – SPOT 6/7 Stadium of the Month we travel across the Pacific Ocean to the site of the opening ceremony for the 2020/2021 Summer Olympics, National Stadium in Tokyo, Japan.
About the Stadium: National Stadium is located in the Shinjuku ward in central Tokyo at the site of an old stadium (actually using the same name, National Stadium) which was demolished in May 2015. After a marred bidding process that required a redo, construction on National Stadium by Azusa Sekkei Corporation started on December 11, 2016. The $1.4-billion stadium was completed a week ahead of schedule on November 18, 2019. There are 68,089 seats in the new National Stadium with the ability to expand to 80,016 seats by covering up the tracks for running. The southern portion of the new stadium features a glass roof as well as an open center design to support a natural grass field below – however we could not find details on the species of grass planted here.
A 50-cm color image of National Stadium in Tokyo, Japan collected on May 3, 2021 by Pléiades 1B; and then a 1.5-m SPOT 7 image of the same stadium collected on May 4, 2021. These images have custom processing and color balancing applied by Apollo Mapping. PLEIADES © CNES 2021, Distribution Airbus DS. SPOT © Airbus DS 2021.Fun Factoids: (1) The opening ceremony for the 2020 Summer Olympics is set to air on the East Coast of the United States at 7am on July 23rd after an unprecedented year-long delay due to the global COVID crisis. NBC will air it’s first-ever live morning broadcast of the ceremony as typically it’s delayed until an evening time bracket to hope for a larger viewing audience. (2) As Tokyo 2020 (really Tokyo 2021) looms in the not so distant future, there is a 4thgrowing wave of COVID across Japan, in fact 80% of total Japanese COVID deaths have occurred in the past four months. Japan also lags behind the USA with less than 5% of the total population receiving their first vaccine when this article was drafted. Does this forbode a coming cancelation of the Summer 2020 Olympics? (3) For the first time ever, the 5,000 Olympic medals to be award in Tokyo were made completely from recycled metals harvested from discarded consumer electronics. In fact, the Japanese government has made the claim that this will be the first carbon-neutral Olympics with a huge commitment to sustainable products including cardboard beds for all athletes.
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.
The SPOT Medium-Resolution Satellite Constellation
The SPOT medium-resolution constellation consist of seven satellites launched from 1986 to 2014 with the most recent additions, SPOT 6 and SPOT 7, launching in 2012 and 2014 respectively. SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 are twin satellites offering 1.5-m panchromatic and 6-m 4-band multispectral data with a massive footprint at 60-kilometers (km) wide. For projects requiring recent archive coverage or rapid new collections of medium-resolution data, SPOT 6/7 should be one of your top imagery sources!
More sample images and technical information about Pléiades 1A and 1B can be found on our website here; while the same can be found here for the SPOT constellation and specifically about SPOT 6/7.
The Apollo Mapping sales team can answer any questions you might have about Pléiades 1 and/or any of the SPOT satellites. We can be reached at (303) 993-3863 or sales@apollomapping.com.
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved - 
Leave a Reply