Pléiades One Day: a high-profile operation on 4 July 2012 to demonstrate Pléiades 1A’s exceptional daily acquisition capability.
Pléiades 1A was tasked to perform 45 acquisitions using different or conflicting scenarios, including 2 Persistent Surveillance acquisitions of 12 consecutive images. In all, 541 scenes were collected over all 5 continents.
Seven of the acquisition scenarios used on 4 July are detailed below.
12 consecutive images were acquired of Tripoli, Libya’s capital.
This imaging mode is ideal for tracking moving targets like small vehicles and gauging their trajectory, speed and heading.
Caracas in Venezuela was also imaged 12 times from the same orbit to reveal hidden zones behind buildings.
All strips of an area of interest are acquired in a single pass.
Four strips were acquired of Sao Paulo, covering an area of the city nearly 80 km wide, to obtain a very-high-resolution urban map.
Strip Mapping mode makes it easier to compile mosaics automatically because radiometry and brightness levels stay constant.
For 3D applications, Stereo/Tristereo acquisitions enable mapping of terrain relief.
To cover Rome in 3D with 6 images, the satellite was tasked to combine two acquisition scenarios: Tristereo and two Strip Mapping scenes.
5 main cities of Baltic countries were imaged although their latitudes and longitudes are close.
Pléiades 1A’s agility was able to overcome this obstacle, imaging Saint-Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius on the same pass.
Three capes were imaged in Strip Mapping mode to follow the coastline of western Sri Lanka, a linear and curved target.
Pléiades can switch its nominal North-South acquisition mode to track a linear feature like a coast, border, river or pipeline.
Persistent imaging of Dili, the capital of East Timor, overcame the problem of frequent cloud and mist in this intertropical region.
Weather forecasts are refreshed three times a day as an added guarantee of cloud-free imagery.
Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, was imaged in monoscopic mode.
At 20 km on a side, this Pléiades VHR scene is the widest-swath imagery of its kind.
See Also...
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