December 15, 2015

SPOT 5 makes its final curtain call

Friday 11 December 2015 at 19:29, the SPOT 5 satellite sent back its last packet of telemetry.

After acquiring millions of pictures of Earth, the SPOT 5 satellite was retired from service between 1 and 11 December. Following a series of 6 orbital manoeuvres to lower its perigee (the point on its orbit closest to Earth), the satellite’s fuel tanks were emptied and its batteries disconnected by CNES teams in Toulouse. It is now stationed safely in an elliptical orbit at an altitude between 625 and 809.

SPOT 5 completed some 70,000 revolutions of the planet, made 25,000 telemetry/telecommand passes and collected nearly 8.2 million 60-km-by-60-km images of Earth’s surface over its operational lifetime.

Normal 0 21 false false false FR X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tableau Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} «With its 2.5-metre resolution and superior imaging capacity, SPOT 5 has been an incontestable commercial success across the globe during its 13 years in orbit Normal 0 21 false false false FR X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tableau Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} » said Bernard Cabrières, Deputy Director of Operations at CNES.



SPOT-5 satellite.
Credits: CNES.