Pleiades-HR system qualification: A focus on ground processing and image products performances, a few months before launch

Pleiades-HR is the highest resolution civilian earth observing system ever developed in Europe. This optical imaging project is conducted by the French National Space Agency, CNES. It will operate two satellites designed to provide optical images to civilian and military users. The first satellite will be ready for launch by April 2010, the second 18 months later. It will allow, in Nadir acquisition conditions, to deliver image products 20 km wide, false or natural coloured scenes with a 50 cm ground sampling distance. Imaging capabilities have been highly optimized in order to acquire, in the same pass, along-track mosaics, stereo pairs and triplets, and multi-targets. To fulfil the operational requirements and ensure quick access to information, ground processing has to automatically perform the radiometnc and geometric corrections. Since ground processing capabilities have been taken into account very early in the mission development, it has been possible to relax some costly on-board components requirements, in order to achieve a cost effective on-board/ground compromise. Starting from a Pleiades-HR system overview, this paper gives a quick description of the ground segment functional breakdown and focuses more precisely on the image processing and associated products. The geometric accuracy is evaluated and the excellent results obtained are presented. Finally the paper presents the ground segment architecture that will handle this "heavy" processing in the different operational Centres.