The 3030 kg (6666 lbm) Satellite Probatoire de l'Observation de la Terre (SPOT) spacecraft was built by Astrium, with payloads provided by Alcatel Space. The satellite has a 5 year design life, and will have a beginning of life power of 2.350 kW.

SPOT satellites follow an orbit which is sunsynchronous, circular and phased, enabling them to overfly any given point always at the same local time. The time of passage of the SPOT satellites above any given region is maintained to within plus or minus 15 minutes, and they retrace their route with an accuracy of plus or minus three kilometers at the equator. It takes 26 days for a SPOT satellite to complete 369 orbits and return to its original position with respect to Earth.

The Spot 5 spectral bands will be: 

The panchromatic band will use  0.51-0.73 µm. Spatial resolutions will be improved within the limits of technical feasibility as the field width of each instrument will be also kept identical. The high-resolution panchromatic mode will be 5m and 2.5m and the multispectral mode (B1, B2, B3) 10m.

Spot Image's main shareholders are CNES (35%), private industrial groups, including Astrium (formerly Matra Marconi Space) which is prime contractor for the SPOT satellites (23%), the French National Geographic Institute (IGN - 10%), and shares held by government and private entities in Belgium, Sweden and Italy (11%).