In January we checked out the site of an extreme winter sports event in Colorado, and for this edition of the Pléiades 1 – SPOT 6/7 Stadium of the Month we head to the site of Super Bowl 55, Raymond James Stadium in Florida.

A 50-cm color image of Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, USA (check out the HD video display!) collected on December 19, 2020 by Pléiades 1B; and then a 1.5-m SPOT 6 image of the same stadium also collected on the same day! These images have custom processing and color balancing applied by Apollo Mapping. PLEIADES © CNES 2021, Distribution Airbus DS. SPOT © Airbus DS 2021.

About the Stadium: Raymond James Stadium is located on Florida’s west coast in north-west Tampa, right next to Tampa International Airport and some 3 miles (5 kilometers) from Old Tampa Bay. Pushed forward by the owner of the National Football League (NFL) team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Raymond James Stadium broke ground on October 15, 1996 and opened on September 20, 1998 to host its first game between the Buccaneers and Chicago Bears. The naming rights for the stadium have been owned by Raymond James Financial since it opened, with a second renewal signed in 2016, securing the name through 2027 for a reported $3.1 million per year. In 2016, a multi-year renovation plan for Raymond James commenced and was completed by 2018 with a $160-million plus price tag. The renovations included a new 10,000 square foot bar, 134 luxury suites as well as the world’s most advanced HD video system with 31,000 square feet of video displays and over 400 speakers pushing out more than 750,000 watts of sound power!

Fun Factoids: (1) Raymond James Stadium is set to host the NFL’s Super Bowl 55 on February 7^th. Originally set for SoFi Stadium, Super Bowl 55 was moved to Tampa when SoFi’s completion date was delayed. With the ongoing and escalating COVID crisis here in the USA, Super Bowl 55 will see it’s smallest crowd ever as Florida restrictions will limit the event’s capacity to just 20% or a bit over 13,000 of the stadium’s total 65,618 seats. (2) Raymond James Stadium seems to be used year-round as it has a busy schedule of events, including home games for the Buccaneers and the NCAA football team, the South Florida Bulls. It also hosts two NCAA football bowl games, the Outback and the Gasparilla Bowl; the Monster Jam; the Sunset Music Festival; a multitude of other sport events and even concerts by Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and U2. (3) The stadium features a 100-foot-long pirate ship that fires its loud cannons for each Buccaneers touchdown and field goal. The ship also features a remote-controlled parrot that talks to fans that pass below.

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.