Jilin-1
50 cm multispectral, the largest commercial constellation, lowest cost on the market
When to use
- Cost-sensitive monitoring where you want sub-meter at a fraction of MAXAR pricing
- Wide-area mapping with the large constellation's rapid revisit
- Customers comfortable with our pipeline doing alignment correction in post (raw Jilin has stability issues we fix automatically)
When it's the wrong fit
- Tight tasking windows (24–72 hours) — nadir-only constraint reduces collection opportunities
- Customers with regulatory restrictions on Chinese data sources
- Workflows needing absolute best GSD (use WorldView-3 instead)
Processing levels
Five processing levels. Levels 1–3 are applied by default on every order; pansharpening (4) runs automatically when the sensor has a panchromatic band; mosaicking (5) runs automatically when the AOI spans multiple scenes. Specify any level explicitly if you need to override the default.
| L | Output | What's applied | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Raw | Digital numbers (sensor counts) with no calibration or geometric correction. Delivered as unprojected GeoTIFF with sensor metadata. | On request |
| 1 | Orthorectified | Geometric correction onto a DEM. Every pixel sits at its true ground position. Customer-supplied GCPs accepted at no extra cost. | Default |
| 2 | Surface reflectance | TOA radiometric correction plus atmospheric correction. Output is the actual fraction of light reflected by the ground, comparable across dates, sensors, and sun angles. | Default |
| 3 | Pansharpened | Gram-Schmidt fusion of panchromatic and multispectral bands. Spectral ratios preserved for downstream analytics. | Default |
| 4 | Mosaicked | Seamless multi-scene composite over the AOI with ML cloud/cirrus masking and custom seam-line path-finding. Applied automatically when the AOI spans more than one scene. | Default* |
*Mosaicking applies when the AOI spans more than one scene. Single-scene orders skip it.
Water masks, tree masks, glint handling, lidar-aligned reflectance, aquatic atmospheric correction, region-tuned models — anything your downstream pipeline requires. Quoted with the order.
Specifications
| General | |
| Provider | Chang Guang Satellite Technology (CGST) |
| Country | China |
| System type | Constellation |
| Product type | Multispectral |
| Availability | Tasking and catalog |
| Available since | 2015 |
| Sensor | |
| Resolution | Panchromatic: 50 cm · Multispectral: 2 m |
| Bit depth | 8-bit, 16-bit |
| Swath width | 150 km |
| Off-nadir range | Nadir-only — no off-nadir steering |
| Constellation | 100 satellites (Jilin-1 constellation (100+ satellites)) |
| Orbit | Sun-synchronous, 535 km |
| Revisit | Sub-daily (constellation) — in practice 1–3 days |
| Acquisition modes | Mono |
| Reference | |
| CRS | UTM-WGS84 |
| Positional accuracy | ~10 m CE90 |
| Processing levels | Custom (full Geopera pipeline applied) |
| Tasking and catalog conditions | |
| Minimum AOI width | tasking 5 km wide · catalog 5 km wide |
| Minimum charge area | tasking 100 km² · archive 25 km² |
| Geographic restrictions | Chinese ground station coverage means longer downlink latency. Some government and defence customers cannot use Chinese imagery for regulatory reasons. |
Live tracking
See all Geopera's satellites →Jilin-1 positions propagated from fresh TLEs in your browser. Satellites rendered at true orbital altitude, oriented nadir-pointing. The emerald rectangles on the ground are each sensor's current swath footprint.
Spectral bands
| Band | Designation and wavelength |
|---|---|
| Blue | 450-520 nm |
| Green | 520-590 nm |
| Red | 630-690 nm |
| NIR | 770-890 nm |
Delivery manifest
Each order delivers as a single archive containing the following files.
jl1-50cm_[order_id].zip
├── data/ 4 band files, GeoTIFF, 8-bit
├── metadata.xml acquisition parameters, calibration coefficients
├── metadata.txt human-readable summary
├── masks/ cloud
└── overviews/ JPEG quicklook
Compare with
Closest alternatives by resolution and product type.
| Spec | Jilin-1 | BJ3A | Göktürk-1 | KOMPSAT-3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 50 cm | 50 cm | 50 cm | 50 cm |
| Provider | Chang Guang Satellite Technology (CGST) | 21AT (Twenty-First Century Aerospace Technology) | IMPROSAT (Turkish Air Force) | SIIS (KARI) |
| Country | China | China | Türkiye | South Korea |
| Type | Multispectral | Multispectral | Multispectral | Multispectral |
| Availability | Tasking + catalog | Tasking + catalog | Tasking + catalog | Tasking + catalog |
Spectral indices
87 spectral indices are compatible with Jilin-1. The most-used: NDVI,EVI,NDWI,SAVI,GNDVI,MSAVI. See the full spectral profile for the complete list and band mappings.
Ready to order Jilin-1?
Browse the catalog, place a tasking order, or request a custom processing pipeline through the Geopera portal. We respond to quote requests within one business day.