RapidEye announced today that they have collected more than 69 Million square kilometers of at least 80% cloud-free images during their first 100 days of operation. The imaging campaigns were concentrated in Europe, the U.S., Brazil and China. More than 36 Million square kilometers of the Earth’s surface, or about one quarter of the total landmass were imaged, often several times.
“When you consider the RapidEye system started operations only in February of this year, the collection rate of more than 69 Million km² of useful images in a little over 3 months is quite impressive,” remarks Michael Oxfort, RapidEye’s Head of Operations and Engineering. “This gives our customers a lot of high quality data to choose from. Even more remarkable is the fact that our system capacity has not been reached yet. We expect our Library to grow to even higher rates in the coming months by expanding our imaging campaigns to other areas around the globe.”
With the arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere, RapidEye is in the process of imaging most of the agricultural land in the United States and Europe. These areas will be repeatedly collected throughout the growing season to provide valuable data for agricultural service customers. In the span of just two weeks in May, over 10 Million km² of low cloud coverage images were collected, demonstrating not only the high imaging capacity, but also the feasibility of high revisit rates.
All of the highest quality multi-spectral data acquired by the RapidEye system is now available in their Library. The Library is continuously growing, with new images being downloaded from their satellites every day. Customers will have the opportunity to choose from the expanding collection of imagery by contacting a RapidEye distributor, a Sales Team member, or a Customer Service representative.
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