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 in term of operational capacity, rapid access and protection of defense interests. The space component is composed of two "small satellites" (mass of one ton) offering a spatial resolution at nadir of 0.7 m and a field of view of 20 km. Their great agility enables: 1) A daily access all over the world, which is a critical need for defense and civil security applications, and 2) An high coverage capacity necessary for cartography applications. As Pléiades is a dual system, there are two ways to access to the system. : Cooperating defenses have a direct access for a limited number of high priority requests to the satellites and the capabilities to receive and process the data on dedicated sites. : For the others users, the responsibility of tasking the Pléiades satellites, data reception, processing, archiving and distribution is given to a Civilian Operator. Astrium GEO-Information Services was chosen after an European Call for Tender. According to a Service Public Delegation - GEO-Information Services will have to serve the institutional users of the cooperating countries. Specific conditions are foreseen for GMES applications. The first Pléiades satellite was successfully launched on December 17th 2011 from the Europe\´s spaceport in Kourou, French Guyana. The calibration phase began immediately with very promising pictures already acquired and the commissioning ended successfully beginning of March 2012. During a one year Thematic Commissioning Phase CNES will provide with Pléiades images the institutional users who worked on developing new products or methodologies initially based on expected images characteristics. The second satellite will be launched in November 2012 and so- the full constellation will be operational beginning of 2013. This paper will describe the system, the way it will be operated and the first thematic results.