Copernicus Overview

The Necessary Distance: How Earth Observation Can Help Shift Our Relationship With The Planet From Exploitation To Responsible Stewardship– Book Presentation

The Copernicus Programme, Europe’s Earth observation and monitoring programme led by the European Union, aims to provide, on a sustainable basis, reliable and timely services related to environmental and security issues.  Under the legal framework of the Copernicus Agreement signed between the European Union (EU) and EUMETSAT in November 2014, the EU has entrusted EUMETSAT, as a key player in the Copernicus space component, with exploiting the Sentinel-3 (Marine), -4, -5 and -6 missions, as well as undertaking the operations of Jason-3, the altimetry reference mission, in cooperation with Jason’s partners, NOAA, NASA and CNES. By operating these satellites, EUMETSAT will strive to deliver data services to the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring, Atmosphere Monitoring and Climate Change services. These Data Services will contain data from Copernicus satellites operated by EUMETSAT, from EUMETSAT’s own satellites and from third-parties with whom EUMETSAT has agreements in place (U.S., India, China,...). EUMETSAT will also distribute Copernicus data to international partners, upon request from the European Commission.

After its launch in January 2016 and successful completion of the launch and early operations phase, EUMETSAT and its partners have started Jason-3 operations.  The dissemination of the Jason-3 near real-time altimetry products should start in June and be followed by the off-line altimetry products later in the year.

Jason-3 is the precursor to Sentinel-6/Jason-CS, to become later the reference mission against which Sentinel-3 and other altimeter data missions will be cross-calibrated. The Jason-CS programme is EUMETSAT's direct contribution to the funding, development and implementation of the Sentinel-6 mission, also involving the European Space Agency (ESA), the EU, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

EUMETSAT will operate and control the Sentinel-3 satellites, starting with Sentinel-3A from February 2016 and followed by Sentinel-3B in 2017, after they have been launched and commissioned by ESA.  EUMETSAT will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Sentinel-3 spacecraft and dissemination of marine products and data to users.

The Sentinel-4 and -5 instruments will be carried on the Meteosat Third Generation and EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS) Second Generation missions respectively, which will be operated by EUMETSAT from 2020 onwards.

The Sentinels’ data, exploited by EUMETSAT, will be delivered in synergy with the organisation’s own and third-party mission data building on EUMETCast, EUMETSAT’s operational and highly reliable dissemination system.  Furthermore, the EU, the Copernicus services and other users will benefit from EUMETSAT’s operational data, not only from the organisation’s own contributing missions, but also from third parties with whom EUMETSAT has set up cooperation agreements.

This paper provides an update on the status of the various missions operated by EUMETSAT on behalf of the EU and on the various data services operated by the organisation.

Copernicus, the Union Earth Observation and Monitoring Programme is entering its full development phase: 3 satellites in orbit provide timely and reliable geo-information on the state of the planet on a full, open and free of charge basis. New delegation agreements with entrusted entities have been concluded, which are going to facilitate the implementation of the programme also in the fields of security.  The services are ramping up their information production: from Emergency management services and Land Monitoring services, operational since 2012, to the Atmosphere and Marine Environment Monitoring services, to Climate Change and Security services, Copernicus can ensure a round the clock forecasting.
Copernicus Land service includes three components: global, pan-European and local and provides geographical information on land cover and on variables related, for instance, to the vegetation state or the water cycle. The Marine environmental service is providing a global model of the state of ocean, describing currents, sea-surface temperature and sea-levels at global and regional levels. These data are vital for understanding the ocean and many activities such as planning of shipping routes and fisheries.The Atmosphere monitoring service provides air quality forecasts at detailed European level as well as global coverage. Information on stratospheric ozone levels help to detail also UV information.The Emergency management service, operational since 2012 supports civil protection authorities during crises. The service is able to provide EU support in early warning in particular in anticipation of floods or fires. The Security service applications support European Union activities in the context of policies such as the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and the protection of EU external borders as established by the EUROSUR regulation. Three main application areashave been identified: Border Surveillance; Maritime Surveillance;Support to the External Action of the EU. Finally, the Climate change service, will give access to information for monitoring and predicting climate changeand will help support adaptation and mitigation. It benefits from a sustained network of in situand satellite-based observations, re-analysis of the Earth climate and modelling scenarios, based on a variety of climate projections.The operational capacityofthe service will be reached during the third year of operations (i.e. 2017/18).
It is now the time to plan for the future too! New missions can be planned, new satellites can be developed and new applications can be promoted through the Big Data platform that makes this European programme the biggest geo-data supplier in the world!"

The Copernicus Earth Observation programme combines satellite data with data from airborne and ground sensors to provide comprehensive information about the state of the land, sea and air. All these data are then fed into a range of information services designed to benefit the environment and to support global, national, regional and local decision-making.

The Space Component, coordinated by ESA, comprises two types of satellite missions; the dedicated Sentinel missions, developed by ESA specifically to meet the Earth Observation needs of Copernicus users, and the Contributing Missions, a number of existing and planned Earth observation satellites from other space agencies or organisations which also provide data to the programme.

The launch of Sentinel-1 in 2014 marked the beginning of the operational phase of Copernicus. Two further Sentinel satellites, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3, have also been launched with a huge amount of data products delivered continuously to users. The other Sentinel family members - Sentinel-5 Precursor, Sentinel-4, Sentinel-5 and Sentinel-6 will be launched within the next years and will be progressively covering all domains of Earth Observation.

With this configuration, the data delivery to users covering all environmental domains will be guaranteed beyond 2030.

Data continuity will remain an objective for Copernicus but is not per se the only justification for a follow-on programme. Thinking of a near term future, new priorities have been introduced in the EU policies arising from recent events in Europe and new societal needs such as the migration issue, better management of EU external borders, natural resources handling and climate change among others. 

Copernicus has therefore to respond to the to the new societal needs and challenges with the required rapidity and flexibility.

The evolution of the Space Component just started as a joint EU-ESA endeavour targeting a CO₂ monitoring mission. Other candidates under investigation for future missions are in the thematic areas of climate change, marine and polar monitoring (Polar ice/ocean interferometric altimetry observations and other polar observations) and of land and atmosphere monitoring and emergency management (Land thermal imaging observations, Soil moisture L-band radiometric and radar observations, Hyper-spectral land imaging observations).

This presentation will give an overview of the current status and future perspectives of the Copernicus space component. 

The Copernicus Space Component, coordinated by ESA, comprises two types of satellite missions; the dedicated Sentinel missions, developed by ESA specifically to meet the Earth Observation needs of Copernicus users, and the Contributing Missions, a number of existing and planned Earth observation satellites from other space agencies or organisations which also provide data to the programme.

In this context, the Copernicus Space Component operations strategy aims at ensuring the reliable provision of Copernicus data to users, guaranteeing at the same time the systematic and routine space and ground segment activities. To this end the Sentinels are operated via a pre-defined background observation and downlink plan, which is updated on a regular basis taking into account the evolution of user needs. All Sentinels acquired data is systematically downlinked and processed to generate a predefined list of core products within specific timeliness, typically within 3 hours from sensing for Near-Real Time, and within 24hours after sensing for Non-Time Critical products.

This innovative operations concept is implemented via the CSC (core) ground segment, responsible for data acquisition, processing, quality control, archiving and distribution as well as spacecraft monitoring and control. The Ground Segment featuring a number of facilities and centres distributed across Europe, taking full benefits of specialised infrastructure and expertise.

This presentation will give an overview of the CSC operations concept and associated space and ground segment architecture, as well as a description of the data access infrastructure. The latest Sentinel mission status will be reported, together with a summary of the Sentinel products and data access statistics over the first two years of operations

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