Pleiades

Description: The Orfeo is a dual-use (civilian and military) earth observation satellite network developed jointly between France and Italy. The system consists of two satellites equipped with advanced electro-optical payloads, known as Pleiades, being developed by France, and six satellites equipped with a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) , known as Cosmo-Skymed, being developed by Italy.

The sun-synchronous Pleiades satellite being developed by France will be equipped with state-of-the-art optical sensors to furnish high resolution imagery. The sensor would allow access to an area with an estimated span of 890 km. The Pleiades satellites will replace the Spot 5 3D imaging satellite ensuring coverage of the same wide-swath while providing panchromatic and multispectral imagery. The maximum resolution will be 70cm across a 20 km swath. The data storage for Pleiades has been increased to 600 gigabits and the downlink data rate now reaches 450 megabits per second.

In October 2003, EADS Astrium was awarded a €314 million ($393 million) contract for the procurement of two Pleiades satellites to be launched in 2008 and 2009. Alcatel Space will supply the high resolution optical sensors and image telemetry.