SPOT is the French government sponsored civil Earth observation program, with support from Belgium and Sweden. A single SPOT satellite provides complete coverage of the Earth every 26 days. Image products from SPOT are handled by a commercial entity, SPOT-Image Corp. Spacecraft: 3-Axis stabilised to 0.1 deg using momentum wheels. Single solar arrays generates 1000 W (BOL) power. Downlink at 8 GHz and 2 x 25 Mbps. Hydrazine propulsion system provides orbit maintenance. Payload: The HRV (High Resolution Visible) imaging payload provides 20 meter resolution multispectral imagery and 10 meter panchromatic imagery using push-broom sensors. HRV covers the following spectral bands: 0.5 - 0.59 � m, 0.61 - 0.68 � m, 0.79 - 0.89 �m; in addition to the panchromatic band: 0.51 - 0.73 � m. The field of view is 4.13 deg in both modes (multispectral and panchromatic) with 3000 pixels per multispectral line and 6000 pixels per panchromatic line. The observed strip is 60 km wide (swath width). On-board recorder capacity is 22 minutes for both modes. The HRV mass is 250 kg. The spacecraft carries two identical HRVs to provide a total of 117 km swath (with 3 km overlap).

Design Life: 2 years. Total Length: 3.5 m. Maximum Diameter: 2.0 m. Total Mass: 1,869 kg.

Remote sensing satellite. Registration 1986-1.B

Remote sensing. Earth observation satellite. Registration 1990-1-B.

Remote sensing.

• 2 - McDowell, Jonathan, The United Nations Registry of Space Objects, Harvard University, 1997. HTML when accessed: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/un/un.html
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