Satellite specifications

• Optical Imagery:
  Basically satellite photos that look like what you’d see with your eyes (like Google Earth). Uses visible and near-infrared light.

• Radar (SAR - Synthetic Aperture Radar):
  Think X-ray vision from space. It uses radar waves to see through clouds and at night. Great for mapping terrain or spotting changes in the landscape (like floods or deforestation).

• Multispectral / Hyperspectral:
  These capture images in different bands of light — not just red, green, blue, but also infrared and beyond. They help detect things you can’t see with the naked eye, like crop health or mineral deposits.

• LEO (Low Earth Orbit):
  These satellites orbit pretty close to Earth (about 500–2,000 km up). Great for high-resolution images. Think: Landsat, Sentinel-2.

• GEO (Geostationary Orbit):
  These stay fixed over one spot on Earth, because they orbit at the same speed Earth rotates (36,000 km up). Good for real-time weather monitoring.

• Sun-synchronous orbit:
  A clever orbit where the satellite passes over the same part of the Earth at the same local solar time. That means lighting conditions are consistent — great for comparing images over time.