SPOT (satellite)

Deorbiting of SPOT 2, in accordance with Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), commenced in mid-July 2009 for a period of two weeks, with a final burn on 29 July 2009.

In 2013, CNES lowered the altitude of SPOT 4 by 2.5 km (1.6 mi) to put it on a phased orbit with a five-day repeat cycle.

On this orbit, SPOT4 was programmed to acquire a time-lapse series of images over 42 sites with a five days revisit period from February to end of May 2013.

The data set it produced is aimed at helping future users of the Sentinel-2 mission to learn working with time-lapse series.

SPOT 5 was launched on May 4, 2002, and has the goal to ensure continuity of services for customers and to improve the quality of data and images by anticipating changes in market requirements.

They form a constellation of Earth-imaging satellites designed to provide continuity of high-resolution, wide-swath data up to 2024.

EADS Astrium decided to build this constellation in 2009 on the basis of a perceived government need for this kind of data.