Satellite imagery: an eye for detail
In the space of ten years, Thales has established itself as the leading European provider of systems that process the detailed images captured every day by Earth observation satellites.
Weather forecasting, environmental monitoring and security are just some of the areas where satellites are supplying a growing range of services with unprecedented levels of reliability. Driving this expansion is a profusion of finely detailed imagery revealing every nook and corner of Earth鈥檚 surface.
How it all began
Thales's Earth imaging success story began in the early 2000s when the French space agency CNES tasked the Group with conducting its first studies[1] in satellite image processing. We subsequently developed a series of demonstrators using avant-garde technologies to test the algorithms involved, which proved so effective that CNES asked us to come up with a complete image-processing system.
In 2005, things moved into higher gear. After a European competitive bidding process, CNES selected Thales to build and maintain the imaging ground segment for the Pleiades programme, supply the corresponding image-processing systems and develop the ground-based encryption and decryption systems.
Pleiades accomplishes the considerable feat of observing and mapping Earth鈥檚 surface every day at very high resolution (70 cm).
Launched in December 2011, Pleiades delivers imagery of any point on the globe to civil and military users in under 24 hours.
The Pleiades imaging system was built for CNES and comprises two satellites operating in the same orbit to serve a broad spectrum of applications including mapping, urban planning, hydrology, geophysics, volcanology and defence.
> Read more at
The imaging ground segment has the capacity to receive, store, process and distribute some 1,000 images a day from the two Pleiades satellites. The image-processing systems conduct radiometric and geometric corrections, resampling, merging and orthorectification of images, using complex algorithms to meet the programme's tight performance and digital quality requirements (see box). The encryption and decryption systems guarantee the security of ground segment data. It has to be said that Thales鈥檚 security expertise is a perfect fit for CNES鈥檚 encryption requirements for French and international civil and military applications.
Satellite image quality depends on a range of factors 鈥 on the sensing instrument鈥檚 intrinsic performance, of course, but also on the many parameters that go into the image-processing algorithms. These parameters have to be finely tuned at the start of the satellite鈥檚 life by closely analysing the first data collected. Certain parameters then have to be readjusted periodically using special algorithms to allow for the natural ageing of the instrument and the satellite.
What makes Thales unique
Over the next ten years, Thales successfully supported CNES鈥檚 flagship image-processing projects, developing expertise unrivalled in Europe in algorithm-based software, calibration/validation centres and operational data production.
On the strength of these successes, Europe鈥檚 space agencies and private customers alike now turn to Thales for their satellite image processing requirements. A team of 300 dedicated experts bring to the table a unique combination of expertise in space remote sensing and advanced data processing, and a portfolio of solutions re-using or adapting components already developed for CNES. These are the key differentiators that have made Thales the European leader in ground segment integration.
Our potential for innovation is another key asset. In Earth remote sensing, innovative technologies like Big Data have naturally become the norm in all of the sectors we serve. The robust Big Data architectures that Thales deploys to handle the vast volumes of data generated by satellites (2.5 terabytes[2] a day for Sentinel-2, for example) are proving their reliability every day.
Thales is pursuing the space adventure through an involvement in a broad range of cutting-edge projects, among them Pleiades, CSO, Sentinel-2, G枚kt眉rk, MTG, Export and Falcon Eye[3]. This key role in major Earth-observing programmes is helping the world to better understand environmental phenomena, anticipate change and enhance security.
Read more:
Sentinel-2: So much data, so little time on thalesgroup.com
From Big data to smart information on thalesgroup.com
Brigitte B茅hal, CNES Director of Procurement, Sales and Legal Affairs, formerly in charge of the Products and Ground Segments Sub-directorate at the agency鈥檚 Toulouse Space Centre (CST)
鈥淭hales is one of our main industry partners and they play a major role in the success of our missions. We have a very fluid relationship. They know how to build bridges between programmes and re-use technology building blocks that have already been developed, and they have the ability to detect promising technologies before they become mainstream.
A good illustration of this proactive approach is the European Space Agency鈥檚 GAIA astrometry mission, for which Thales is supplying the French data processing centre for CNES. When we started development, we didn鈥檛 know if our technologies would be capable of handling the volume of data required to compile a catalogue of one billion stars, and the data storage issues facing us were immense. With the new technologies and databases that Thales proposed, we were able to set up a data processing centre that has proven outstandingly reliable and robust. It really is a great success!
> Read more: Smarter data for deeper insights into the galaxy on thalesgroup.com