The mission planning function is fulfilled by the Mission Planning Service(s) in the form of operational service provision making use of mission-specific systems maintained by ESA and provided as CFI to the service operator. Pre-defined observation plans are implemented for all Sentinel missions in order to guarantee continuous data flow to the operational services. The up-to-date Acquisition Plans for Sentinel-1 and -2 missions are available here. The mission planning function implements the observation scenario of each Sentinel mission, in line with the observation strategy implementation and with the available satellite and ground resources and constraints. The mission planning function includes a transversal planning system for the managing and de-conflicting of downlink conflicts between the various Sentinel satellite units, the Sentinels Resource Allocation system (SRA).

The ESA CSC Ground Segment includes the following Mission Planning elements:

• One Sentinel-1 mission planning system, in charge of implementing the Sentinel-1 observation scenario, in line with the spacecraft operational constraints and available downlink resources.
• One Sentinel-2 mission planning system, in charge of implementing the Sentinel-2 observation scenario, in line with the spacecraft operational constraints and available downlink resources.
• One Sentinel-5P acquisition planning system, interfacing the Spacecraft Operations and Control for implementing the Sentinel-5P observation scenario, in line with the spacecraft operational constraints and available downlink resources
• One Sentinels resource allocation system (SRA), resolving conflicts between Sentinels to prevent downlink interferences and ensure coordinated usage of downlink resources, interfacing with each Sentinel Mission planning system accordingly.
• One Mission planning interface point (MPIP), also referred as Exchange Data Server, acting as a temporal repository of scheduling information generated by the various mission planning systems accessible to the CGSs for retrieving the associated acquisition schedule.