A breaking news update here that has been confirmed directly with our contacts at Airbus North America: the first launch of the 30-centimeter (30-cm) Pléiades Neo constellation is on-track for April 16, 2021!! The first of four identical 30-cm Neo satellites is set to launch from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana – and well we could not be more excited given Airbus’ ability to task every and all of our orders in a very timely fashion. We expect the validation process to take about 5 months once Neo is launched, meaning we should be ready to task the satellite in late Q3 or early Q4 of this year.
While we are waiting for more details on the hopefully successful launch of the first 30-cm Pléiades Neo satellite, here are a few of the defining features of the constellation:
- Constellation Size: four identical, agile macro-satellites
- Expected Geolocation Accuracy: < 5-m CE90% (at nadir)
- Ground Sampling Distance (GSD): 30-cm panchromatic + 1.2-meter multispectral (at nadir)
- Spectral Bands: deep blue, blue, green, red edge and near-infrared (NIR) + panchromatic
- Dynamic Range: 12-bits
- Imaging Modes: mono, stereo and tri-stereo
- Revisit Time: daily at 30 degrees off-nadir
- Constellation Collection Capacity: up to 2 million square kilometers per day
Additional specifications on the pending Pléiades Neo constellation can be found here. In the meantime, email us with any questions or comments about the upcoming April launch at sales@apollomapping.com.
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