Pléiades Neo

Pléiades Neo is a constellation of four very-high-resolution optical Earth observation satellites that Airbus Defence and Space funded, built, owns and operates as the successor to its first-generation Pléiades pair. Each satellite carries a silicon carbide imager that resolves 30 centimetres in panchromatic mode and 1.2 metres in multispectral bands over a 14 kilometre swath, and each is based on the S950 optical satellite bus. They fly in sun-synchronous orbits at about 620 kilometres, phased 90 degrees apart so that the constellation can revisit any point on Earth twice a day, and every satellite adds roughly half a million square kilometres of daily coverage. Laser terminals from Tesat Spacecom pass images through the European Data Relay System for near real time delivery. The first two satellites flew on Vega rockets in April and August 2021, while the last two were lost in December 2022 when a Vega-C launcher failed.