Toulouse, France | 27 January 2026 — Airbus Defence and Space has confirmed that the first satellite under its Pléiades Neo Next programme will be launched in early 2028 from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The mission will be carried out using Avio’s Vega C launch vehicle.

 

The Pléiades Neo Next programme represents the next phase in Airbus’s Earth observation strategy, building on the operational Pléiades Neo constellation already serving government and commercial users worldwide. The new satellites will introduce additional assets and capabilities, including native imagery resolution in the 20-centimetre class.

 

According to Eric Even, Head of Space Digital at Airbus Defence and Space, the programme is designed to extend the performance and reliability standards established by the existing constellation, while supporting the delivery of imagery, geo-intelligence services and downstream applications.

 

The programme is fully funded, manufactured and operated by Airbus Defence and Space. All image capacity will be made available to customers across a wide range of sectors, including defence and intelligence, agriculture, environmental monitoring, maritime operations, disaster response, mapping, location-based services, civil engineering, urban planning and utilities.

 

Operationally, users will retain the ability to directly task Airbus satellites up to a few dozen minutes before a satellite passes over an area of interest. Imagery will be delivered via customers’ Direct Receiving Stations or through Airbus’s OneAtlas digital platform shortly after acquisition, supporting time-sensitive and mission-critical use cases.

 

Once deployed alongside the existing Pléiades Neo satellites, Pléiades Neo Next is expected to increase global revisit rates to several passes per day in many locations, while maintaining high spatial resolution and geolocation accuracy. The programme also includes further development of the ground segment, Direct Receiving Stations and the OneAtlas platform, enabling higher imagery request volumes and reduced latency between tasking, capture and delivery.

 

Pléiades Neo Next forms part of Airbus’s broader Earth observation portfolio, which combines optical and radar satellite constellations to offer complementary services across multiple resolutions and operating conditions, including all-weather, day and night capability. In parallel, Airbus continues to develop additional observation capabilities based on stratospheric platforms.