Skip to main content

Constellations

The Tasking API supports the tasking of our SkySat, Pelican, and Tanager constellations. The same mechanisms and end points are used regardless of the constellation to be tasked:

  • The constellation(s) available for a Tasking order are defined by the selected contract and product.
  • Depending on the constellation, additional fields may become available for orders, captures, and imaging window search requests.

SkySat Tasking​

SkySat Tasking is the baseline that is used throughout the documentation for descriptions and examples. The descriptions of Pelican and Tanager Tasking below are contrasted against the SkySat case and will otherwise work the same.

Pelican Tasking​

Product Configuration​

Pelican capacity will be provisioned alongside existing SkySat capacity, unless agreed otherwise with your Customer Success Manager. There will not be dedicated Pelican products, but Assured, Flex or Monitoring products will have both SkySat and Pelican satellites assigned for order fulfilment. This means that if you are an existing SkySat customer and Pelican capacity has been provisioned to you, you can keep tasking with existing products and will automatically benefit from the added Pelican capacity.

New Fields​

When searching imaging windows for an Assured order, you will find a new field satellite_type, which can take on the values of SKYSAT or PELICAN, identifying which constellation will be used to fulfill the order.

Example response to GET from tasking/v2/imaging-windows/search/{search_id}

{
  "id": "...",
  "imaging_windows": [
    {
      "id": "502832c4-a3b4-4d84-94ba-48fff0349885",
      "satellite_type": "SKYSAT",
      "start_time": "2025-06-20T22:48:30.759000Z",
      "end_time": "2025-06-20T22:49:42.400000Z",
      ...
    },
    {
      "id": "f32a9f37-f723-4c62-90ab-3b8d711fabdf",
      "satellite_type": "PELICAN",
      "start_time": "2025-06-24T01:59:50.045000Z",
      "end_time": "2025-06-24T02:00:34.045000Z",
      ...
    },
  ],
  ...
}

Proceed with order creation as previously - all that is needed to create a Pelican Assured order is to pick a Pelican imaging window.

Example body to post to tasking/v2/orders/ - note the imaging window ID matching the Pelican imaging window above:

{
	"pl_number":"...",
	"product":"Assured Tasking",
	"geometry":{"type":"Point","coordinates":[...,...]},
	"name":"Order name",
	"imaging_window":"f32a9f37-f723-4c62-90ab-3b8d711fabdf",
	...
}

Order​

The order model has two new fields:

  • satellite_types, which identifies a list of satellite types that can be used to fulfill it.
  • data_product, which always has the value HIGH_RESOLUTION_SCENES for SkySat and Pelican orders.

Any request that returns an order body, for example retrieving, creating, or updating, contains these fields for any customer provided with Pelican access:

{
  "id": "...",
  "satellite_types": [
    "PELICAN", "SKYSAT"
  ],
  "data_products": [
    "HIGH_RESOLUTION_SCENES"
  ],
  ...
}

Capture​

The capture model has one new field, satellite_type, which identifies the type of the satellite that created that capture. Capture bodies, as returned for example when retrieving your captures, now contain this field:

{
    "id": "...",
    "order_id": "...",
    "satellite_type": "PELICAN",
    ...
}

Pricing​

The pricing of Pelican orders may differ from SkySat orders. See Pricing on how to obtain a detailed breakdown of the cost of a prospective order.

Tanager Tasking​

Product Configuration​

As for the high-resolution constellations, the three modes of collection are Flexible, Monitoring and Assured scheduling, so your Tanager products will be some or all of Tanager Flexible Core Imagery, Tanager Monitoring Core Imagery and Tanager Assured Core Imagery. These names may slightly differ based on additional use cases they support.

New Fields​

Imaging Window Search​

When searching imaging windows for an Assured order, the response contains two new fields:

  • satellite_type, which can only take on the value of TANAGER, identifying the constellation to fulfill the order
  • sensitivity_mode, which describes the sensitivity mode supported by that imaging window. See section “Order” below for more information. To use a particular sensitivity mode, that field should be added to the Imaging Window Search request as well.

Example body to POST to tasking/v2/imaging-windows/search/:

{
  "pl_number": "...",
  "product": "Tanager Assured Core Imagery",
  "geometry": {"type":"Point","coordinates":[...,...]},
  "sensitivity_mode": "high",
  ...
}

Example response to GET from tasking/v2/imaging-windows/search/{search_id}

{
  "id": "...",
  "imaging_windows": [
    {
      "id": "f32a9f37-f723-4c62-90ab-3b8d711fabdf",
      "satellite_type": "TANAGER",
      "start_time": "2025-06-24T01:59:50.045000Z",
      "end_time": "2025-06-24T02:00:34.045000Z",
      "sensitivity_mode": "high",
      ...
    },
    ...
  ],
  ...
}

Order​

The order model has four new fields:

  • satellite_types, which identifies a list of satellite types that can be used to fulfill it - always ['TANAGER'] for Tanager products
  • data_product, which will have the value
    • HYPERSPECTRAL_SCENES for Core Imagery products and
    • TANAGER_METHANE_DETECTION for Methane QuickLook products
  • sensitivity_mode, which influences the number of integrations performed during hyperspectral imagery capture. Please refer to the Tanager Imagery documentation for details. Possible values are:
    • NOT_APPLICABLE indicating not a hyperspectral imagery order
    • STANDARD for 1 integration per line over a 8 ms duration (1x8)
    • MEDIUM for 2 integrations per line over a 8 ms duration (2x8)
    • HIGH for 3 integrations per line over a 8 ms duration (3x8)
    • MAX for 4 integrations per line over a 8 ms duration (4x8)
  • asset_types containing the assets that you request to be created for this order. Typically, you should not need to change it from your products’ default settings, which are
    • ['basic_radiance_hdf5', 'ortho_radiance_hdf5'] for the Core Imagery product, and
    • ['basic_radiance_hdf5', 'ortho_radiance_hdf5', 'basic_sr_hdf5', 'ortho_sr_hdf5'] for the (SR) products.

Any request that returns an order body (List, Retrieve, Create, Update) now contains these fields:

{
  "id": "...",
  "order_type": "IMAGE",
  "pl_number": "...",
  ...,
  "satellite_types": [
    "TANAGER"
  ],
  "data_products": [
    "HYPERSPECTRAL_SCENES|TANAGER_METHANE_DETECTION"
  ],
  "sensitivity_mode": "standard",
  "asset_types": ["basic_radiance_hdf5", "ortho_radiance_hdf5"]
  ...
}

Capture​

The capture model has two new fields:

  • satellite_type, which identifies the satellite type used to fulfill it (always TANAGER here)
  • delivered_asset_types, which lists all asset types that have already been published for that capture

Any request that returns a capture body (List, Retrieve, Create, Update) now contains these fields:

{
  "id": "...",
  "order_id": "...",
  ...,
  "satellite_type": "TANAGER",
  "delivered_asset_types": [...]
  ...
}

Pricing​

The pricing of Tanager orders differs from SkySat orders. See Pricing on how to obtain a detailed breakdown of the cost of a prospective order.

Last updated on