Airbus launching new satellite system

Vincent J. Curtis

11 May 2021

When you think of Airbus, most people think of it as an aircraft manufacture famous for its A300 and A200 series commercial aircraft, fighters like the Eurofighter and multipurpose military aircraft such as the C295 and MRTT.  But Airbus is more than that.  It is also a world leader in satellite systems and geointelligence data and products. 

Airbus advanced its space system capabilities on April 29, 2021, when an Arianespace Vega rocket launched from French Guiana, arced over the Atlantic Ocean and delivered into earth orbit the first of four new satellites which together will form the Pléiades Neo constellation. The new optical satellite constellation will enable Airbus to provide a second-generation of geo-intelligence data services.  The second satellite of the Pléiades Neo series is expected to be launched this summer.

The Pléiades Neo imagery is very high resolution - 30 cm - with a geomatic accuracy of less than 5 meters.  The new satellites deliver 6 multispectral channels.  The constellation has a nominal lifespan of ten years.

The Pléiades Neo constellation was entirely funded, designed, manufactured, and is owned, and operated by Airbus. It is intended to provide commercial and institutional customers with high-resolution imagery that can be combined with Airbus’ proprietary analytics.  Each of the four satellite can cover up to 500,000 sq. km per day, for a total of 2 million sq. km per day coverage.  The images will be made available on Airbus’ OneAtlas digital platform, which will allow Airbus’ customers immediate access to both freshly acquired and archived data, combined with Airbus’ extensive analytics.  The analytics include object identification, change detection, and activity monitoring.

The Pléiades Neo constellation will work in conjunction with Airbus’ existing fleet of Earth observation satellites that includes the TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X, and NovaSAR radar satellites; and optical satellites that include the original Pléiades series (2 satellites), SPOT (2 satellites), DMC constellation (4 satellites), and Vision 1 (1 satellite).

The Pléiades Neo constellation incorporates laser inter-satellite links (ISL) that provides connectivity to the SpaceDataHighway (EDRS) geostationary satellites. The use of ISLs accelerates the tasking process enabling urgent image acquisition within 30 to 40 minutes of a tasking request.  The combination of both high resolution and fast reactivity provide fast tempo, actionable intelligence.

“The Pléiades Neo constellation will definitively boost the 30 cm imagery market, bringing a lot of innovation and coverage capacity to the commercial and government end uses” said François Lombard, Head of Intelligence at Airbus Defense and Space.

Airbus lists the key features of the Pléiades Neo system as: provides the highest commercial resolution combined with accurate geolocation; reactive tasking and rapid delivery; up to 2 million sq km coverage per day; mono, stereo, and tri-stereo acquisition capability; and 100 percent commercial resource availability.  The benefits of these features include: information delivery in a drastically reduced timeframe; rapid coverage at a regional scale; extensive monitoring; and a leveraging with Airbus’ suite of analytics for automatic detection and object identification.  According to Airbus, the user benefits from immediate access to Pléiades Neo and the entire Airbus constellation, either straight from the users Direct Receiving Station or through the Airbus digital platform OneAtlas.

The potential applications of the imagery and analytics include: defense and intelligence, law enforcement, maritime; oil, gas, mining, and energy sectors; agriculture, forestry and environment, land use administration, mapping, transportation and engineering; 3-D modelling, and aviation.

Because the data is commercial and unclassified, users such as the CAF could share it with allied powers during its international operations, according to Airbus.  The imagery is complementary to space-based radars presently used by the CAF.  Airbus says it can bring space based optical and radar surveillance capabilities to the CAF’s space based surveillance project called DESSP. It is actively engaged in the development of solution concepts that address the future Earth observation  requirements of DND and the Canadian Space Agency.

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