Very-high-resolution component
Spot 6-7
The SPOT-6 and SPOT-7 optical satellites acquire imagery at very high spatial resolution (1.5 m).
| Satellite operator | Airbus Defense and Space |
| Operations | Airbus Defense and Space |
| Data processing | • Acquisition : DINAMIS – SPOT-7 direct receiving station (Montpellier) • RGE® national basemap products IGN |
| Users | • Authorized Institutional Users (AIUs), • French private R&D entities • European scientists |
| Cost | Free within the limits of the structure’s funding capacity, on the basis of quotas or thresholds revised yearly. Outside these quotas, SPOT-6-7 data are also available through two pay offers. • €20k for 20 additional scene-equivalent acquisition attempts (approx. 70,000 km²) • €50k for 50 additional scene-equivalent acquisition attempts (approx. 180,000 km2) |
| Licence | Institutional |
| Special requirements | Special procurement terms are offered to contributing users to pre-fund data volumes for their specific requirements. |
For further information, contact DINAMIS.
Spot 7 © Airbus DS 2020
Pléiades
The Pléiades optical satellites acquire imagery at very high spatial resolution (0.5 m).
| Satellite operator | Airbus Defense and Space |
| Operations | Airbus Defense and Space |
| Data processing | • Acquisition : Airbus Defense and Space • Production : Airbus Defense and Space |
| Users | • Authorized Institutional Users (AIUs) • French private entities for R&D or services provided to a public stakeholder • European and foreign scientists working within a cooperative framework or on a collaborative project between a French AIU and a foreign AIU. |
| Cost | Free within the limits of the structure’s funding capacity, on the basis of quotas or thresholds revised quarterly. Outside these quotas, Pléiades data are also available to scientists with co-funding and to public stakeholders at a preferential rate. |
| Licence | Institutional |
For further information, contact DINAMIS.
Pléiades ©CNES, 2020 – Distribution Airbus DS
High-spatial-resolution component
SPOT World Heritage (SWH)
The operational mission of the five SPOT satellites—SPOT-1 to SPOT-5—came to an end in 2015 when SPOT-5, the last in the series, was deorbited. For nearly 30 years they acquired millions of high-resolution scenes (10 m to 2.5 m) from all over the globe. The French space agency CNES, the owner of these SPOT data, set up the SPOT World Heritage programme (SWH) to compile a unique database. The images this constellation of five satellites collected are every bit as meaningful today as when they were acquired, complementing more recent data from other Earth-observation satellites.
Since June 2021 you can download SPOT imagery for free from the online catalogue developed by CNES (https://regards.cnes.fr/user/swh/modules/60). To do so, simply create your account and agree to the terms of the Etalab 2.0 licence. The SWH project/CNES must be credited in all downloaded images used.
CNES has also developed the SWH-2A-Carto service to enable SWH images to be processed and aligned with Sentinel-2 Level 1C products. SWH-2A-Carto quickly converts—in one to five seconds—SWH-1A images into equivalent unrefined Level 1C SWH-2A-Carto products.
Images are resampled in a map projection at constant elevation with the simplified Level 1A geometric model, but without geocoding or a digital elevation model (DEM). They are in digital numbers (DN) and 8-bit encoded.
This offers several advantages:
- product geometry makes them readily usable
- pixels are constant size (to allow for panoramic distortion)
- processing is extremely fast (2 to 4 seconds depending on product resolution)
The one drawback is that product geolocation accuracy is the same as for Level 1A (about 500 m RMS for SPOT-1, -2 and -3, 200 m for SPOT-4 and 50 m for SPOT-5), a degree of error that basically equates to a constant displacement of the entire image and can be allowed for simply through a translation.
For further information, contact DINAMIS.
Spot 5 ©CNES, 2003
Sentinel-2 PEPS Product Exploitation Platform
Every five days, the Sentinel-2 mission beams back pictures of our planet in 13 optical spectral bands, enabling frequent monitoring at high resolution (10 m) of changes in plant cover, land occupancy and the impacts of global warming.
Drawing on the heritage of NASA’s Landsat and CNES’s SPOT programmes, the Sentinel-2 mission is part of the European Union’s Copernicus global environmental monitoring and security programme. CNES makes Sentinel-2 data available free of charge via its online PEPS Sentinel Product Exploitation Platform and delivers products corrected for atmospheric effects through the Theia land surfaces data hub. PEPS also distributes Level 2A ground reflectance data, corrected for atmospheric effects using ESA software..
| Operations | European Union / Copernicus |
| Satellite operator | ESA |
| Data processing | • Acquisition : ESA • Redistribution : PEPS |
| Users | All users |
| Cost | Free |
For further information, contact DINAMIS.
