Pléiades Neo: The Most Detailed & Accurate Commercial Satellite Imagery

Pléiades Neo:

The Most Detailed & Accurate Commercial Satellite Imagery

Airbus, Intelligence has delivered on its promise of providing the highest native spatial resolution Earth observation satellite imagery to the commercial market with the Pléiades Neo, which expands the applications of how and what satellite imagery can be used for.

Airbus, Intelligence has delivered on its promise of providing the highest native spatial resolution Earth observation satellite imagery to the commercial market which expands the applications of how and what satellite imagery can be used for.

Pléiades Neo has brought upgrades to the market including a previously unmatched geolocation accuracy and image consistency, which in many ways is just as crucial to many applications as spatial detail. The uncorrected imagery (Primary) has a native accuracy of 3.5 meters

(m) CE90. In addition, the orthorectified products sold by Airbus boast a stunning 5m CE90 accuracy worldwide. The new constellation provides rapid satellite imagery tasking with enhanced multispectral capacities that make it the most versatile Earth Observation satellite ever built for commercial use.

Completing the Constellation The four Pléiades Neo satellites each capture 30cm panchromatic and 1.2m multispectral image data at 14km swath widths. Each can collect up to 500,000 km2 per day and up to 7,500 km2 in a single pass. Together, the four will capture 2 million km2 in a single day. The satellites are extremely agile which gives them the ability to slew in orbit to capture imagery at oblique angles. This expands the frequency with which they can collect “revisit” imagery over the same geographic area on Earth’s surface. With four satellites in orbit, nearly any location on the globe can be imaged at least two times a day, and sometimes three times, depending on viewing angles and latitude. This enables users to monitor rapidly evolving events such as floods, fires, and storms.

Designed with Accuracy and Resolution in Mind Airbus designed the Pléiades Neo satellites and processing systems from the ground up to capture and deliver the highest quality commercial imagery possible. From the perspective of nearly any geospatial application, especially feature mapping, the accuracy of pixel geolocation is equally important to the pixel resolution. In other words, knowing precisely where a feature is located on Earth is just as crucial as identifying it.

With minimal additional processing, Airbus sells the primary product to customers who perform their own geometric processing. As noted above, the advertised native planimetric accuracy is 3.5m CE90, although most data sets are achieving better results. In addition, a superior 5m geolocation accuracy is achieved worldwide in the Orthorectified image products where geometric distortions have been removed in a processing workflow developed specifically for Pléiades Neo.

To accomplish this, Airbus created a new worldwide database of highly accurate 3D ground control points, called Space Reference Points (SRPs), from archived SPOT 6 and 7 multi-view satellite image stacks acquired over decades of SPOT operations. In addition, the Airbus geometric

Pléiades Neo 30cm imagery over a cruise ship alongside a dock.

Pléiades Neo 30cm resolution image over Sydney airport in Australia and a major highway intersection in Los Angeles, California.

processing workflow uses elevation models from the Airbus WorldDEM4Ortho product database to reach the 5m planimetric accuracy. time series change detection. Additionally, inter-sensor compatibility is a necessity for analysis involving Artificial Intelligence.

Airbus now uses the SRP/ WorldDEM4Ortho geometric processing workflow to generate orthorectified image products for its Pléiades Neo, Pléiades 1A/1B, SPOT 6/7, and Vision 1 Earth observation satellites. This means all Airbus optical ortho images are aligned to the same reference system and are fully compatible with each other for large, multisensor analysis projects, such as Available and Accessible Now Pléiades Neo data has become an instant hit, due to the combination of spatial detail, geolocation accuracy, and frequent revisit for mapping and monitoring applications in the defense Intelligence, Energy, Agriculture/ Forestry, Civil Engineering, and Maritime sectors.

Customers can also directly task the satellites through the Airbus OneAtlas Platform in as little as 25 minutes before a satellite passes over an area of interest. An entirely new production workflow can downlink the data from a Pléiades Neo satellite and deliver a finished product to the customer within as little as two hours of order placement – the first truly near real-time imaging capability on the market today.

Contributing to this broad appeal are the advanced multispectral capabilities in the Visible Red, Green, Blue, and Near Infrared portions of the spectrum – as well as two new bands. The new Deep Blue band (400-450 nm) penetrates the water column to deliver insights related to depth and water quality in the near-shore ocean environment, as well as in freshwater lakes, rivers, and streams. Uses have developed hydrologic and bathymetric applications in the coastal zones, including mapping seafloor relief in shallow areas.

The Red Edge band (620-690 nm) is being leveraged to detect subtle vegetative stress in applications related to agriculture and forestry. Sensitive to chlorophyll production in green plants, this wavelength enables users to identify problems in vegetation, such as infestation, poor irrigation, and inadequate fertilization. Red Edge data reveals the stress early in the growth cycle before the human sees it, often before the damage is permanent. The spatial detail of Pléiades Neo data allows farmers and foresters to find vegetative problems in individual plants and trees.

To learn more about Pléiades Neo and other Airbus imagery and data, please visit www.intelligence-airbusds.com

THE VIEW OF

NEW DIMENSION

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Get a new dimension of insight with Pléiades Neo, a cutting-edge constellation of four Earth observation satellites. Pléiades Neo combines 30cm very high resolution that enables a clear view of objects as small as streetlights, and the ability to perform intraday revisits – giving you operational advantage and unparalleled access to information. With Pléiades Neo, governments, militaries, institutions, and businesses can make the right decisions at the right time – keeping our world safe and beautiful.