Purchase of the Spanish component of the Atlantic Constellation of Earth Observation

The Spanish contribution to the Atlantic Constellation project contemplates the development of a constellation of small Earth observation satellites with the aim of providing Earth observation data with a high frequency of revisit over the Iberian Peninsula.

The Spanish component of the Atlantic constellation will be a system dedicated to providing multispectral and hyperspectral optical images and services, as well as data from other payloads, focused on the area defined by the Atlantic Peninsula, the Canary Islands, the Azores Islands, the Madeira Islands and the Balearic Islands; and the surrounding seas (where it will complement the observations provided by Copernicus). The space segment of the Earth Observation Project consists of 8 satellites and their payloads. ESA will be responsible for the contracts related to the Agreement and for the negotiation and conclusion of the corresponding industrial contracts and any modification of these with the selected entities, on behalf of the Spanish Space Agency (AEE).

The contract will cover the entire development of the system, namely: the space segment (8 satellites) until acceptance for flight; the ground segment (command and control functionalities - FOS, and data segment) until acceptance.

It is proposed to divide the development project into two parallel phases: a short Consolidation Phase (first 3 months from the KO to the KP#1) followed by a selection of the industrial team and an Implementation Phase (-24 months).

The objective of the initial Consolidation Phase is to evaluate the strength of the approach proposed by each industrial team.