The acquisition of SPOT-1 HRV imagery over southern Britain and northern France, May 1986-May 1987

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Abstract
The number and spatial distribution of SPOT-1 HRV images acquired over northern France and southern Britain during the first commercial year of the SPOT satellite system (officially 6 May 1986–6 May 1987) have been evaluated in response to concern about the lack of cloud-free imagery. The results confirm that despite large numbers of images being acquired per scene (1 panchromatic and 12 multispectral on average over northern France; 8 panchromatic and 12 multispectral over southern Britain) most are of limited use because of cloud cover. Only 30 per cent of the images collected (or 5 images/scene/year) have at least one quadrant with <25 per cent cloud cover and 10 per cent (or 2 images/scene/year) have < 10 per cent cloud cover in each quadrant. The implications of acquiring large amounts of marginally useful data are two-fold: (1) the efficiency of the ground segment is reduced, delaying the supply of data to the user and (2) the use of HRV data for monitoring environmental change and agricultural use (for example) during the year is limited. To obtain more cloud-free data a more efficient management of the present HRV instruments must be established, and alternative strategics (for example using information from on-board forward-looking sensors or geostationary meteorological satellites) should be considered for future sensors.

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