The RapidEye constellation and its data products

RapidEye is a commercial remote sensing mission delivering geospatial information. Five identical satellites in a sun-synchronous orbit image more than four million square kilometers per day. RapidEye features the unique ability to revisit any area on Earth daily. Within three years of operation, the constellation mastered a number of complex challenges, which led to an evolved mission concept. RapidEye started commercial operations in February 2009 and utilizes its own dedicated spacecraft control center and a full ground segment designed to plan, acquire, and process several millions of square kilometers of imagery every day. In order to keep up with evolving market demands, RapidEye has continually worked at advancing the mission concept beyond its original vision and capabilities, extending the mission concept to include data sales, emergency response, and direct downlink capabilities. As a result RapidEye can reliably and predictably supply the most current, cost-effective, and high quality information about features on the Earth's surface. This paper describes the challenges that have to be met for adapting to an evolving geospatial information market. It shows the possibilities and limitations of the satellite constellation and the engineering efforts that have to be undertaken to provide highly reliable data products.