The Spot family is designed and developed by the French space agency Cnes. The Spot system comprises several satellites, an orbit and mission control ground segment, a global network of receiving and processing stations, and an international product distribution and marketing network.

The Spot family includes five satellites of which two are still in activity :

• Spot-1 launched on February, 22, 1986 and stopped in 2001,
• Spot-2 launched  on January 22, 1990 and stopped on June 30, 2009
• Spot-3 launched on September 26, 1993 and stopped on November 14, 1996,
• Spot-4 launched on March 24, 1998,
• Spot-5 launched on May 4, 2002.

The spectral bands measured by the instruments have been carefully selected to match the Spot missions requirements, particularly for monitoring of crop and plant health, land management, topographic and relief mapping, ecosystem monitoring. These satellites do not include radars altimeters, unlike all the others satellites detailed on this site. They are presented here because, since Spot 2, the Doris instrument is onboard. Since Spot 4 Diode system able to localize the satellite in real-time.