NEW! Maxar data requests are now supported by the CSDA program data team. Access requests may be made by filling out the authorization request form.
The Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) program evaluates and procures data from commercial vendors that advance NASA’s Earth science research and applications activities.
Currently, data acquired during the evaluations of Planet, Maxar (formerly DigitalGlobe, Inc.), and Spire Global are available. Data from the Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) also are available through a separate collaboration with the International Space Station (ISS). See the table below to learn how to access vendor-specific data. All data products are available through CSDA at no cost to authorized researchers and are subject to scientific use licenses.
The commercial data currently distributed by NASA are available under different scientific use licenses and various access portals. Please see table below for data access portals and vendor-specific end user license agreement (EULA) information. Check back for updates on new data acquisitions.
Data and End User License Agreements
Vendor
Data Available
Date Range
Who is authorized to use the data
Scientific use only
3rd party publication requires permission
Where to get archived data
Can PIs submit new orders
EULA
Planet
PlanetScope
6/29/2014
- Present
U.S. Federal civil agencies (including NSF) and their funded researchers
* Principal Investigators should submit publications as a courtesy copy to the vendor.
All data requests must be approved by CSDA data managers. Contact us to provide your name, email address, and pertinent information (grant number, contract number, etc.) to indicate that you are authorized to use the data. The CSDA team will verify if the user is authorized for data access first. Once verified, the user will be provided with additional information on how to request and access data.
The tables below list available satellites, their orbits, and their sensors' temporal and spectral resolutions.
Planet
Planet has successfully launched nearly 300 satellites to space and currently operates approximately 150 Dove satellites, and 13 SkySat satellites. Planet downlinks more than 300 million km2 of imagery daily.
Image
A PlanetScope satellite. Image courtesy of Planet.
PlanetScope/Dove Satellite Constellation and Sensor Characteristics
Mission Characteristics
International Space Station Orbit
Orbit Altitude (reference)
400 km (51.6° inclination)
Max/Min Latitude Coverage
+/- 52° (depending on season)
Equator Crossing Time
Variable
Sensor Type
Three-band frame Imager or four-band frame Imager with a split-frame NIR filter
SkySat Satellite Constellation and Sensor Characteristics
Attribute
Value
Mass
110 kg
Dimensions
60 x 60 x 95 cm
Total DeltaV
180 m/s
Onboard Storage
360 GB + 360 GB cold spare storage
RF Communication
X-band downlink (payload): variable, up to 580 Mbit/s
X-band downlink (telemetry): 64 Kbit/s
S-band uplink (command): 32 Kbit/s
Design Life
~6 years
Geolocation Knowledge
30 m CE90 in a 500 km altitude orbit
Ground Sample Distance
[SkySat-1, SkySat-2]
Panchromatic: 0.86 m
Multispectral: 10 m
[SkySat-3 – SkySat-13]
Panchromatic: 0.72 m
Multispectral: 1.0 m 2.3 targets (6.6 x 10 km) per minute
Revisit (per satellite)
4-5 days
*Reference altitude 500 km
Equatorial Crossing (UTC)
10:30 – Current C-Gen satellites
13:00 – SkySat-1 and SkySat-2
13:00 – Block-2 C-Gen satellites
SkySat Satellites have three cameras per satellite, which capture
overlapping strips. Each of these strips contain overlapping scenes.
One scene is approximately 2560 x 1080 pixels
Sensor Type
CMOS Frame Camera with Panchromatic and Multispectral halves
Spire designs, builds, and operates a growing constellation of over 120 3U Low Earth Multi-Use Receiver (LEMUR) satellites tasked with collecting Radio Frequency (RF) signals from low Earth orbit. The company offers a suite of commercial RF sensing products, including a catalog of atmosphere, ionosphere, and weather data services derived from Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals collection.
The Spire-designed STRATOS payload collects these GNSS signals from which Spire can derive useful Earth Observation data types for climate and space weather research, among other applications. To support their mission, the company owns and operates over 30 ground stations and a robust data pipeline for quickly and securely moving data from orbit to cloud.
Image
Spire LEMUR Constellation and Sensor Characteristics
Parameter
Value
Design life
3 years
Built by
Spire
Volume
100 x 100 x 340.5 mm (3U)
100 x 226.3 x 340.5 mm (6U)
The Maxar (formerly DigitalGlobe) constellation of high-resolution satellites offers unrivaled accuracy, agility, and collection capacity, imaging more of the world in the finest level of detail. The company’s active constellation includes WorldView-1, WorldView-2, WorldView-3, and GeoEye-1, and archive imagery dating back to 1999 is available from its QuickBird, IKONOS, and WorldView-4 satellites. The Maxar constellation offers a unique catalog of data products that are directly related to and/or can lead to Essential Climate Variables (ECVs).
Image
The Worldview-4 satellite. Image courtesy of DigitalGlobe.
DigitalGlobe Worldview-4 Specifications
Attribute
Value
Orbit
Altitude: 617 km
Type: Sun Synchronous, 10:30 am descending Node
Period: 97 min.
Life
Estimated service life: 10 to 12 years
Spacecraft size and aperture
Size: 5.3 m (17.7 ft) tall x 2.5 m (8 ft) across
7.9 m (26 ft) across deployed solar arrays
Aperture: 1.1m
Panchromatic Nadir: 0.31 m
20° Off-Nadir: 0.34 m
56° Off-Nadir: 1.00 m
Multispectral Nadir: 1.24 m
20° Off-Nadir: 1.38 m
56° Off-Nadir: 4.00 m
Dynamic range
11-bits per pixel
Swath width
At nadir: 13.2 km
Attitude determination and control
Type: 3-axis Stabilized
Actuators: Control Moment Gyros (CMGs)
Sensors: Star trackers, precision IRU, GPS
Pointing accuracy and knowledge
Accuracy: 170 m at 40 off-nadir
Knowledge: Supports geolocation accuracy below
Retargeting agility
Time to Slew 200 km: 10.6 sec
Onboard storage
3200 Gb solid state with EDAC
Communications
Image & ancillary data: 800 Mbps X-band
Housekeeping: 120 kbps real time, X-band
Command: 64 kbps S-band
Max contiguous area collected in a
single pass (30° off-nadir angle)
Mono: 66.5 km x 112 km (5 strips)
Stereo: 26.6 km x 112 km (2 pairs)
Revisit frequency
(at 40°N latitude)
1 m GSD: < 1.0 day
Total constellation > 4.5 accesses/day
Geolocation accuracy
(CE90)
Predicted < 5 m CE90 without ground control
Capacity
680,000 sq km per day
Image
The Worldview-3 satellite. Image courtesy of DigitalGlobe.
DigitalGlobe Worldview-3 Specifications
Attribute
Value
Orbit
Altitude: 617 km
Type: Sun synchronous, 10:30 am descending node
Period: 97 min.
Life
Spec Mission Life: 7.25 years
Estimated service life: 10 to 12 years
Spacecraft size, mass and power
Size: 5.7 m (18.7 ft) tall x 2.5 m (8 ft) across 7.1 m (23 ft) across deployed solar arrays
Mass: 2800 kg (6200 lbs)
Power: 3.1 kW solar array, 100 Ahr battery
The QuickBird satellite. Image courtesy of DigitalGlobe.
DigitalGlobe QuickBird Specifications
Attribute
Value
Launch Information
Date: October 18, 2001
Launch Vehicle: Delta II
Launch Site: SLC-2W, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
Mission Life
Extended through early 2014
Spacecraft size
2400 lbs, 3.04 m (10 ft) in length
Model
Altitude 400 km
Altitude 450 km
Orbit
Type: Sun Synchronous, 10:00 am descending node
Period: 92.4 min.
10:25 am descending node
Period: 93.6 min
Sensor Resolution and spectral bandwidth
Panchromatic:
55 cm GSD at nadir
Black & White: 405 - 1053 nm
Multispectral:
2.16 m GSD at nadir
Blue: 430 – 545 nm
Green: 466 – 620 nm
Red: 590 – 710 nm
Near-IR: 715 – 918 nm
Panchromatic
61 cm GSD at nadir
Multispectral:
2.44 m GSD at nadir
Dynamic range
11 bits per pixel
11 bits per pixel
Swath width
Nominal Swath Width:
14.9 km at nadir
Nominal swath width:
16.8 km at nadir
Attitude determination and control
Type: 3-axis Stabilized
Star tracker/IRU/reaction wheels, GPS
Type: 3-axis Stabilized
Star tracker/IRU/reaction wheels, GPS
Retargeting agility
Time to slew 200 km: 37 sec
38 sec
Onboard Storage
128 Gb capacity
128 Gb capacity
Communications
Payload Data: 320 Mbps X-band
Housekeeping: X-band from 4, 16 and 256 Kbps, 2 Kbps S-band uplink
Payload Data: 320 Mbps X-band
Housekeeping: X-band from 4, 16 and 256 Kbps, 2 Kbps S-band uplink
Revisit Frequency (at 40oN Latitude)
Revisit time may vary from 2 to 12 days depending on target location as the orbit decays.
Revisit time may vary from 2 to 12 days depending on target location as the orbit decays.
Metric accuracy
23 m CE90, 17 m LE90 (without ground control)
23 m CE90, 17 m LE90 (without ground control)
Capacity
200,000 sq km per day
200,000 sq km per day
Teledyne Brown Engineering
Image
The DESIS satellite.
The DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) is a pushbroom, hyperspectral sensor currently operating in the Multi-User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES) platform on the International Space Station (ISS). DESIS was developed and built by DLR and is operated commercially by Teledyne Brown Engineering. DESIS was launched on June 29, 2018, and achieved initial operating capability on November 21, 2018.
DESIS Performance Specifications
Parameter
DESIS values (Commissioning Phase)
Orbit (type, local time at equator, inclination, altitude, period, repeat cycle)
not Sun-synchronous, various, 51.6°, 405 ± 5 km, 93 min, no repeat cycle
Coverage
55° N to 52° S
Tilt (across-track, along-track)
-45° to +5°, -40° to +40° by MUSES and DESIS
Sensor pointing
±15° along-track to enable BRDF or Stereo acquisitions
Spectral coverage
402 nm to 1000 nm
Number of spectral channels
235 (no binning) ~2.5nm
118 (binning 2)
79 (binning 3)
60 (binning 4) ~10nm, this product will be available June 2019
Defective spectral channels (see footnote 2 below for description and location)