Pleïades-HR 1, 2

Pleiades-HR [Astrium]

Pleïades is the CNES (French national space agency) program designed as the follow-on to its highly successful Spot series of low Earth orbit (LEO) multi-mission observation satellites, which has operated an uninterrupted service since 1986.

The Pleïades HR satellites are the high-resolution optical imaging component of the French-Italian Orfeo system, for which Italy is supplying the COSMO-Skymed radar component. The first launch is planned for 2008.

The ground resolution will be 70 centimeters across a 20 kilometer swath, while a very high degree of agility will allow them to acquire several images successively along track or off track, for mosaicking of ground scenes. The onboard storage capacity has been increased to 600 gigabits and the downlink data rate to 450 megabits per second.

The 1,000 kilogram satellites will have a design lifetime of five years and onboard power capacity of 1,000 watts.

Astrium is prime contractor for Pleïades satellite bus, including all functions dedicated to satellite control and monitoring as well as payload data handling and transmission, and is responsible for software development and satellite validation. Alcatel Space is responsible for the high-resolution instruments and image telemetry.

Nation:	France
Type / Application:	Earth Observing
Operator:	CNES
Contractors:	Astrium (prime), Alcatel
Equipment:	?
Configuration:	AstroSat-1000
Propulsion:	?
Lifetime:	5 years
Mass:	~ 1000 kg
Orbit:

Satellite	Date	LS		Launcher	Remarks:
Pleïades-HR 1	2010	Ko ELS		Soyuz-2-1a Fregat	with SSOT, ELISA 1, ELISA 2, ELISA 3, ELISA 4
Pleïades-HR 2	2011	Ko ELS		Soyuz-2-1a Fregat