Question

Which satellite series is operated by the French Space Agency (CNES)?

• A. LANDSAT series
• B. SPOT
• C. RS
• D. IKONOS

Hint:

• SPOT (Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre) is a French satellite program for Earth observation, initiated by CNES.
• LANDSAT is a U.S. program (NASA/USGS).
• IKONOS was a U.S. commercial satellite.
• RADARSAT is Canadian (CSA); Resourcesat is Indian (ISRO).

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

Let's identify the operating agencies for the given satellite series:

• LANDSAT series (option a): This is a long-running series of Earth observation satellites operated by the United States, specifically a joint initiative of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and USGS (United States Geological Survey).
• SPOT (Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre) (option b): This is a series of commercial Earth observation satellites designed and developed by the French Space Agency, CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales), in partnership with Belgian and Swedish contributions. SPOT Image (now part of Airbus Defence and Space) was responsible for the commercial distribution of SPOT data.
• RS (e.g., RADARSAT, Resourcesat):
  • RADARSAT is a series of Canadian radar Earth observation satellites operated by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
  • Resourcesat is a series of Indian remote sensing satellites operated by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). The generic "RS" is too vague, but prominent "RS" satellites are not French.
• IKONOS (option d): IKONOS was a commercial high-resolution Earth observation satellite, the first to collect publicly available imagery at 1-meter resolution. It was launched by Space Imaging (later GeoEye, now part of Maxar Technologies), a U.S. company.

Therefore, the SPOT satellite series is operated by the French Space Agency (CNES). \[ \boxed{\text{SPOT}} \]