SPOT was the French government sponsored civil Earth observation program. A single SPOT satellite provided complete coverage of the Earth every 26 days. The system provided 5 m resolution in the panchromatic band and 10 m resolution in the multispectral bands.

SPOT 5A and 5B were the next generation of this series. Additional program support came from Belgium and Sweden. Image products from SPOT were handled by a commercial entity, SPOT-Image Corp. The spacecraft was 3-axis stabilized, with a 150 Mbps downlink rate. The payload included the HRG (High Resolution Geometry) instrument for multispectral imaging of the earth's surface. Each spacecraft carried three HRGs, one looking forward, one looking down, and one looking aft.

Total SPOT budget was $ 5 billion. Original budget was $ 1150 million for 2 units; this was cut to $ 680 million for 1 unit in June 1986. Alcatel's payload contract for $ 92.6 million was signed on 2 February 1995.

Design Life: 4 years. Typical orbit: LEO, sun-synchronous, repeating. Mass: 3,000 kg (6,600 lb). Main Engine Propellants: 150 kg (330 lb).

• 2002 May 4 - SPOT 5 - Program: SPOT. Launch Site: Kourou. Launch Complex: ELA2. Launch Vehicle: Ariane. Mass: 3,000 kg (6,600 lb). Perigee: 825 km (512 mi). Apogee: 826 km (513 mi). Inclination: 98.80 deg. Period: 101.40 min.
  Remote Sensing satellite. Last launch of Ariane 42P version. Launch delayed from April 10. The Ariane 42P, with two PAP solid boosters, flew north from Kourou. The third stage burn occurred off the east coast of North America, with engine cutoff at 0150 UTC and stage separation at 0151 UTC. Venting of the remaining third stage propellant was seen by observers in the US. SPOT Image's SPOT 5 was built by Astrium/Toulouse. The main instrument was the HRVIR imaging camera payload including a 2.5-meter resolution imager. A secondary experiment was the 5-band VEGETATION-2 instrument with 1-km resolution.