SPOT Series of Satellite
French Government in joint programme with Sweden and Belgium undertook the development of
Systeme Pour l'Observation de la Terre (SPOT) program. Conceived and designed by the French
Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales(CNES), SPOT has developed into a large-scale international
programme with ground receiving stations and data distribution outlets located in more than 30
countries. It is also the first system to have pointable optics. This enables side-to-side off-nadir
viewing capabilities, and it affords full scene stereoscopic imaging from two different satellite tracks
permitting coverage of the same area. SPOT-1 was retired from full-time services on December 31,
1990. The SPOT-2 satellite was launched on January 21, 1990, and SPOT-3 was launched on
September 25, 1993 Spot 4 was launched on 26 March 1998. SPOT-1, -2 and -3 have identicalorbits
and sensor systems,