Arlula APIs

The Arlula infrastructure is broken down into a few main sections, each relating to distinct actions including accessing, purchasing, managing, and utilising satellite imagery data from archival and tasking sources.

This documentation serves as a comprehensive resource to best understand the platform and its associated endpoints.

If you would instead rather work with an SDK in your preferred language, we have a Python and NodeJS SDK available.
If you are using another language, please let us know.

General information about authentication and connection testing can be found below, along with a changelog for major updates.

The following are the four main API groups, and their main endpoints:

Archive API: for querying and purchasing satellite imagery captured some time in the past.
This includes the ability to:

  • Search, for obtaining a list of satellite imagery available for the request’s search criteria
  • Get Scene, for retrieving scene details
  • New Order, which creates a new order, and pays for purchasing imagery
  • Batch Order, for ordering multiple scenes at the same time
  • Thumbnail Details, for retrieving thumbnail tiling and rendering information

Tasking API: for querying availability and ordering satellite imagery to be captured in the future.

  • Search, for obtaining a list of possible capture opportunities for a target location, time period and conditions
  • Retrieve Opportunity, retrieves a given opportunity set from the api
  • Order, for confirming and booking one of the opportunities obtained from search
  • Batch Order, for confirming and booking a set of tasking opportunities in a single operation.
  • Cancel Campaign, for cancelling a campaign that has not yet being commenced

Orders API: for managing and downloading your past imagery orders.

  • List Orders, which will list all past and current orders on your account
  • List Campaigns, which will list all past and current tasking campaigns on your account
  • List Datasets, which will list all datasets available on your account
  • Get Order, which will list the details of a order and any associated campaigns and datasets
  • Get Campaign, which will list the details of a campaign and any associated datasets
  • Get Dataset, which will list the details of a datasets, as well as its associated resources for retrieval
  • Download Resource, which requests download of a resource associated with a dataset, such as the imagery or its metadata

API Authentication

Making requests to the Arlula APIs requires providing API Authentication credentials for every request as part of the request header.

To obtain API credentials, you will need to create and API account in our system dashboard and be issued with API Credentials.

All requests to the API must be made via a https connection.

Authentication is achieved by providing your API Key and API Password using the HTTP Basic AuthMechanism.

Connection Testing

An endpoint is available at /api/test that does nothing other than check your authentication.

This is often useful if you want to check your setup prior to making actual requests.

Changelog

Version 1.0.0:

Initial version of API, supported:

  • search imagery
  • order imagery
  • orders list
  • order get
  • order
  • resource get

Version 1.1.0:

Internal update for platform update

Version 1.2.0:

Added SI Imaging as an imagery supplier/vendor.
Backwards compatible updates to request decoding

Version 1.3.0:

Added signup procedure for non activated accounts

Version 2.0.0:

AOI ordering for imagery

Search response structure changed:

  • added sceneID field
  • added annotations
  • field – changed overlap to object with children:
    • area
    • percent
    • polygon
  • Changed price field to include new field aoi which also contains pricing information for AOI order

Order object changes:

  • added trim field

Version 2.0.1:

Added new resource types:

  • img_jp2 for JPEG Core 200 format imagery, and
  • meta_bundle for aggregated or otherwise bundled metadata

Version 2.0.2:

Updated order status labels to clarify state (‘manual’ for awaiting supplier non-automated response caused confusion)

Version 2.0.3:

Added additional resource types for scene geometry:

  • geo_json for geometry defined in the geoJSON standard
  • geo_kml for geometry defined in Keyhole Markup Language (KML)
  • geo_shp for bundled shapefiles and their metadata (zip file containing shp, shx, dbf and prj files)
  • geo_bundle for geometry of a unknown or miscellaneous format provided by the supplier

Version 2020-12:

  • Change in version number format (2020-12 rather than 3.0.0).
  • Coordinates in a point are reversed order to be [long, lat] to be consistent with geoJSON and similar formats as an X, Y format.
  • API account delete functionality.
  • Webhook events now have a wrapper to their payload to support future planned usage
  • MOQ ordering; all searches return an AOI price, increased to the supplier minimum order if it was less than it. This causes several dependent changes:
    • overlap field is always included and includes the polygon that will be ordered
    • overlap.percent is now an object with two fields search and scene
    • price is now a single pricing object that provides the AOI price, scene pricing is no longer provided
    • remove trim as an ordering parameter

Version 2021-01

Added additional server behaviors to enable UI’s binding against the API (internal, version bump for bug tracking)

Version 2021-03

  • Supplier search filter support
  • Change to ordering ID encoding standard to support future planed features

Version 2021-09

  • Added cloud cover archive search filter
  • Added off nadir archive search filter
  • Added offNadir to archive search results
  • Added platform to archive search results
  • Updated resource structure, adding roles, format, size and checksum fields

Version 2022-07

  • Archive search request res parameter renamed to gsd
  • Archive search response is now object rather than result array
  • Removed archive search result eula and price fields
  • Renamed archive search result field id to orderingID and resolution to gsd
  • Increased polygon arrays to depth 3 for archive search result bounding and overlap.polygon to support complex polygons
  • Added new archive search result fields bands for spectral resolution information, bundles for ordering level selection, and licenses for licensing selection.
  • Deprecated seats as a field on archive order request
  • Added bundleKey in archive order request to select processing level by key
  • Order structure imageryID field renamed to more representative orderingID

Version 2023-01

  • support to search by polygon

Version 2023-06

  • batch archive ordering
  • archive search via POST request
  • collections system

Version 2023-08

  • Tasking API
  • Archive search sort parameter

Version 2024-02

  • new thumbnail enablement features for archive
  • new tasking fields to prepare for future updates

Version 2024-07

  • tasking results may include selectable opportunities/orbits
  • reseller/platform endpoint variants supported for archive and tasking for hosted satellite operators

Version 2025-01

  • restructure of ordering API (maintaining legacy endpoints for compatibility) to distinguish orders, campaigns and datasets at point of retrieval

Version 2025-08

  • prototype monitoring API available to beta users

Version 2025-10

  • prototype processing & workflow API to beta users

Version 2026-03 (planned)

  • reworked API documentation to address optionality in deployments
  • processing API to phase two beta users

Archive API

Order Archive Imagery The New Archive Order endpoint lodges a new archive imagery order with the supplier providing the imagery requested.

Read More

Orders Management API

The Get Order endpoint allows the return of a detailed order object, including a list of contained tasking campaigns and datasets.

Read More

Tasking API

Cancel Tasking Campaign The tasking order cancellation endpoint allows users to cancel pending tasking orders. They can only be cancelled while in the pending-approval state.

Read More