Three years of EnMAP Ground Segment Operations

Abstract

Challenge Spaceborne imaging spectroscopy holds a great potential for advancing our understanding of Earth's dynamic systems and the challenges we face. The EnMAP mission, operating in the spectral range 418 - 2450 nm, is designed to exploit this potential by providing the scientific community with high-quality hyperspectral data. Operating such a high-precision instrument in space involves addressing challenges from accommodating the user's requests, optimizing the mission time utilization to handling and processing large data volumes. To meet these demands, the Ground Segment (GS) has introduced several enhancements over the last years, improving the handling of these operational challenges.

Materials & Methods EnMAP's GS is managed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). It is designed to operate for five years and allow data access and processing capabilities for 20 years. The GS is composed of three systems: > Mission Operation System controls the satellite and instrument. It plans the daily operations (imaging acquisitions, contacts with ground stations, maneuvers, etc.) and it is in charge of receiving telemetry and sending telecommands. > Payload Ground System. It is responsible for receiving, processing and archiving data, as well as providing the user interfaces for user registration, submission of proposals, instrument tasking, processing and downloading of the user EnMAP products. > Processor and Calibration/Validation System. It is responsible for developing and maintaining the processing chain that generates the user's products. It applies the radiometric and spectral calibration, orthorectification and atmospheric correction. It monitors and updates the instrument calibration, data quality control and monitors the instrument to guarantee an optimal quality of the data. During these first three years in orbit, the EnMAP GS has introduced enhancements to optimize and facilitate the tasking of the user acquisitions, the processing of the image data and the delivery of the products to the user community.

Results Since its launch and through the end of 2024, the EnMAP mission has performed more than 13400 Earth observations, resulting in the availability of more than 109400 products that can be ordered for on-demand processing at the EnMAP mission archive (Figure 1). The GS completed during 2024 the reprocessing of the commissioning data affected by lower geometric performance, in particular the VNIR-SWIR co-registration. The GS has also introduced the Inuvik receiving station into the operations workflows, improving downlink flexibility and reliability and enabling more tasking opportunities over Europe. Additionally, the computing capabilities of the mission are being upgraded, what shall improve the product delivery times and future re-processing times. EnMAP L2A Analysis Ready Data products are being delivered by the GS to the EOC Geoservice and the EOlab platform and distributed to the registered users of those services. These products are the standard L2A products, processed with default parameters and directly downloadable. In addition, several changes have been made2 to the Instrument Planning portal improving the tasking of the instrument. Finally, the GS plans the Foreground Mission acquisitions, offering recurring observations of large areas over Europe at locations previously discussed and agreed with the user community.

Outlook By the time of the 2nd EnMAP User Workshop, the EnMAP mission will have been operating for three years. Both the satellite and the instrument are working exceptionally well, with no consumables or technical issues that could pose an obstacle to a potential mission extension over the initially planned 5 years. Over the next year, the GS will continue to closely monitor the performance of the mission and refine the processes to enhance observation strategies and further improve the quality of the EnMAP data products.