The Pléiades system and data distribution

The Pléiades program is a dual program developed in cooperation between the space agencies of France, Sweden, Belgium, Spain and Austria. It has been designed to provide high resolution optical data for the benefits of civilian and defense users. The space component is composed of two agile "small satellites" offering a spatial resolution at nadir of 0.7 m and a field of view of 20 km. The first Pleiades satellite was successfully launched on December 17th 201 1 from the Europe\´s spaceport in Kourou, French Guyana and the commissioning ended successfully beginning of March 2012. The second satellite was launched on December 2nd 2012 and so the full constellation is operational since beginning of 2013.