The successful launch of the first satellite of the Pléiades Neo constellation is the perfect occasion to remind you of the new possibilities this unlocks in the field of imagery analysis for defence and security organisations. Going beyond the visualisation of a specific Area of Interest (AOI), Pléiades Neo now reflects ground truth more than ever before, to support decision making and operations, which can impact civilians, military personnel and more generally the success of a mission.
Pléiades Neo will complete Airbus extensive optical and radar satellite constellation with:
- 4 satellites
- 30cm native resolution
- 6 spectral bands including deep blue
- 100% commercial availability
- 3m location accuracy
- 2 intra-day revisit
24/7 Availability: Timely Information
One of the key differences with other 30cm data sources is that Pléiades Neo is 100% available and thus reliable: Airbus customers can request to task our satellite and they are the ones setting the level of priority for the tasking. They can be certain of collecting their images when they need them, making Pléiades Neo data a reliable source of information to support critical missions and to complement sovereign satellite imagery datasets.
Collection Capacity and Unrivalled Agility: Complete Information
To contextualise and understand a complex crisis, defence and security stakeholders need to capture the big picture to get the most complete information. Pléiades Neo offers a huge acquisition capacity of 30cm imagery data: in a single pass, one satellite can collect up to 7,500km², facilitating multi-target collection over a region. This massive collection capacity also enables other applications such as mapping as well as modelling the Earth in 3D.
Revisit: Continuous Information
Pléiades Neo constellation will enable intra-day revisit and hence improve monitoring capabilities.
Combining all the Airbus Very High Resolution (VHR) satellites tasking resources will allow to multiply by 3 the revisit capacity of small AOIs and to continuously collect intelligence over specific AOIs.
Whether for strategic or operational activities, continuous monitoring is a unique and confident way to anticipate risks and observe the evolution of a situation over a longer time-frame.
High-Resolution: More Information
With images at 30cm resolution, Pléiades Neo provides analysts with a new level of detail. Groups of people are made more visible as well as smaller objects, such as vehicles and road markings. The detection, recognition and identification of objects and targets are also highly improved, easing the work of image analysts, and improving the reliability of automatic image recognition tools. Much more information is thus available allowing the analysis of an AOI to be more thorough than ever.
Geolocation Accuracy: Reliable Information
Once all the relevant objects, buildings and targets have been identified, it is key to know their precise location whether for mapping, targeting, navigation or mission preparation applications. With a guaranteed 3m geolocation accuracy, Pléiades Neo reflects the ground truth at best, avoids field check and assures accurate action planning.
Some improved defence and security applications include:
- Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) analysis
- Strategic intelligence monitoring
- Mapping (urban cartography, military targets mapping)
- Mission planning (georeferenced database, fresh relevant imagery archive, 3D terrain visualisation)
- Time sensitive operations preparation
- In-flight navigation
- Battle Damage Assessment
- Disaster relief management and natural damage assessment
- Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) monitoring
In summary, thanks to the quantity, reliability, continuity and agility of the information provided by Pléiades Neo, defence and security organisations benefit from a unique access to image intelligence capability.
