Overview
The constellr constellation of thermal infrared satellites currently consists of two satellites, SkyBee-1 and SkyBee-2, launched in January and June 2025, respectively. The constellation is designed to deliver high-resolution, space-based Land Surface Temperature (LST) data for agriculture, climate resilience, and environmental monitoring applications, achieving a thermal accuracy of <2 K.
Equipped with dual visible–near infrared (VNIR) and thermal infrared (TIR) sensors, the satellites capture thermal data at a native resolution of 30 m. Operating in sun-synchronous orbit, SkyBee-1 and SkyBee-2 provide 1.5-day revisit capabilities during daytime and nighttime conditions. The revisit time of the constellation will continue to decrease as the number of satellites grows over the coming years.
| Orbit Altitude | 510 – 540 km |
| Orbit Type | Sun-synchronous |
| Repeat Cycles | 1.5 days |
| Local Overpass Time | SkyBee-1: 10:30 (day) / 22:30 (night) SkyBee-2: 13:30 (day) / 01:30 (night) |
constellr Objectives
The primary objective of the constellr constellation is to provide precise, high-resolution Land Surface Temperature data.
The constellation is capable of detecting subtle temperature variations associated with the following:
- Agricultural water stress detection and irrigation management
- Drought and crop yield forecasting
- Ecosystem and forest health assessment
- Urban heat mapping
- Infrastructure and industrial site monitoring
- Environmental monitoring
- Civil security applications
constellr Instruments
The SkyBee satellites carry two instruments: a Thermal Infrared (TIR) instrument, and a Visible and Near-Infrared (VNIR) instrument. The TIR instrument, which achieves a 28.9 m Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) and a 17.5 km swath width at an altitude of 510 km, is the primary instrument. The radiance retrieved by the 4-band TIR imager is transformed to orthorectified LST data using the additional information provided by the VNIR instrument.
| Spectral Bands | Band | Central Wavelength [µm] | Bandwidth [nm] |
| 1 | 8.6 | 300 | |
| 2 | 9.2 | 300 | |
| 3 | 10.6 | 500 | |
| 4 | 11.75 | 500 | |
| Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) | 28.9 m | ||
| Swath Width | 17.5 km | ||
At an altitude of 510 km, the VNIR camera has a swath width of 21 km with a GSD of 5 m. Thus, the camera covers the complete swath of the TIR instrument and can be used for georeferencing. Several segmented spectral bandpass filters provide 10 custom spectral bands aligned with those of the Sentinel-2 satellites.
| Band | Central Wavelength [µm] | Bandwidth [nm] | Targeted GSD [m] (binning) |
| 1 | 443 | 20 | 60 |
| 2 | 490 | 65 | 10 |
| 3 | 560 | 35 | 10 |
| 4 | 665 | 30 | 10 |
| 5 | 705 | 15 | 20 |
| 6 | 740 | 15 | 20 |
| 7 | 783 | 20 | 20 |
| 8 | 842 | 115 | 10 |
| 9 | 865 | 20 | 20 |
| 10 | 945 | 20 | 60 |
constellr Data
DATA DOWNLOAD
ESA is offering, through a dedicated Announcement of Opportunity, access to Land Surface Temperature data products from constellr for scientific research and application development, upon submission and acceptance of a project proposal.
ESA will support as many high-quality and innovative projects as possible within the quota limit available, therefore only a limited number of products can be made available to each project.
The following collection is available: