PRESENT - Preparing for the ESA Sentinel Missions

Short Description

The Sentinel satellite family is the flagship of Earth observation satellites operated by ESA and EC and provides the continuity for operational monitoring of the environment and climate using optical and microwave satellite data for the next decades. Various types of ground segments are implemented to provide information from Sentinel satellites for public use.

Acquisition, processing, archiving and validation of the large amount of Sentinel data is organized in Core Ground Segments implemented by ESA. They are supported by Mission Performance Centres, providing calibration, validation, quality control, or end-to-end system performance assessments. These segments are complemented by Collaborative Ground Segments, installed at national and regional level in order to provide higher level products and services based on Sentinel data sets.

The project is aimed at developing technical concepts in preparation for a potential involvement into the above opportunities. The technical developments of the project thus refer to:

  • Evolution of data processing algorithms
  • Development of quality assessment procedures for Sentinel core products
  • Development of advanced methods for the derivation and monitoring of alpine land use and land cover maps for alpine regions
  • Development of innovative algorithms to generate snow and glacier products from multi-sensor Sentinel data, and methods for data assimilation and product validation
  • Demonstration applications to generate land use, change detection, snow and glacier products using simulated Sentinel data sets

Simulations of optical as well as SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) Sentinel image data kindly provided by ESA are used for the developments and investigations in the project, which builds on previous national projects like ASAG or Triple-M. Dedicated concepts with respect to the establishment of a Quality Assessment Expert Laboratory or a Collaborative Ground Segment are further elaborated.

Apart from the opportunities mentioned above, the project developments will be of benefit for ongoing GMES-related activities of the project partners, such as GEOLAND-II, EUFODOS and CryoLand, as well as for future national and international research contracts.

Project Partners

Coordinator

JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, DIGITAL - Institute for Information and Communication Technologies (JR-DIG) - Mathias Schardt

Partner

ENVEO Environmental Earth Observation IT GmbH - Thomas Nagler

Contact Address