New SPOT 4 Mission Before Being De-orbited
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New SPOT 4 Mission Before Being De-orbited

After 177 months in service and having collected 6,811,918 images, SPOT 4’s mission was brought to an end by CNES and Astrium on 11 January. In June, in compliance with the recommendations of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), CNES will begin the long process of de-orbiting SPOT 4 for a re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at some point within the next 25 years.

In the meantime, SPOT 4 is being given a new lease of life as a key element of the Take Five mission from February to May. The aim of this CNES-managed mission is to pave the way for the future Sentinel-2 mission. The ESA family of Sentinel satellites is set to replace the Envisat satellite and meet requirements for GMES services.

SPOT 4 was launched on 24 March 1988 and acquired its last image on 11 January 2013, namely of the region of Mendoza, Argentina, with its vineyards and fruit orchards in the Andean foothills. During its operational lifetime, SPOT 4 served chiefly to collect crop statistics, forecast yields, monitor environmental risks and support precision agriculture.

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