France: Launched on 17th December 2011 from the Guiana Space Center, the very high-resolution satellite Pléiades 1A has recently completed five years in the earth orbit. The next year in December 2012, the satellite was joined by its twin Pléiades 1B in space.
The two satellites, built and operated by Airbus Defence and Space on behalf of CNES (the French Space Agency), are the first European satellites to observe the Earth in very high resolution.
Providing imagery products at 50cm resolution with a 20km swath, they are positioned 180° apart in a same near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 694 km.
They also have remarkable agility which allows them to aim a point up to 1500 km on either side of their track. This gives them a fast zone-pointing capability and multiple shooting modes (stereo, mosaics, corridor, targets).
