To fulfill its scientific objectives, VENµS has to acquire frequent, high resolution, multi-spectral images of over 100 sites of interest all around the world. The satellite will fly in a near polar sun-synchronous orbit at 720 km height. The whole system will be able to be tilted up to 30 degree along and across track. This configuration will result in a 2-days revisit time, 27 km swath, a camera resolution of 5.3 m at nadir, and the capability to observe any site under a constant view angle. The system will cross the equator at around 10:30 AM.

Possible coverage of VENµS Nadir in yellow, Tilted viewing in grey, no coverage in blue	Closer view of possible coverage

The satellite will carry a super-spectral camera characterized by 12 narrow spectral bands ranging from 415 nm to 910 nm. The band setting was designed to characterize vegetation status, including through red-edge bands, and to estimate the aerosol optical depth and the water vapour content of the atmosphere for accurate atmospheric corrections. The spectral band setting could also prove useful for coastal areas and inland waters studies.

The data will be acquired over existing or planned experimental sites with size ranging from 27 x 27 km² kilometres to 27 x 54 km² or more. All data for a given site will be acquired with the same observation angle in order to minimize directional effects. The baseline product for these selected sites is time composite images of geometrically registered surface reflectances at 10 m resolution. Strong efforts are devoted to provide high quality data, both in term of radiometry (e.g. SNR around 100), geometry (e.g. multitemporal registration better than 3 m), and atmospheric corrections.

The VENµS scientific mission is planned for at least two years and a half and will be followed by the technological mission for a duration of one year.