Copernicus Sentinel-5P Data Quality update for near real time SO2 and HCHO, and further information on data gaps

As a follow up to the news regarding the quality warning for SO2 and HCHO, it can now be confirmed that the background calibration is being correctly performed and that the quality of the near real time processing is no longer degraded from the 15h of December.

Due to contingency affecting acquisition station availability there have been gaps in the near real time (NRTI) product generation on orbits 16362 to 16366, the non time critical (OFFL) production is mostly unaffected, with a small data gap only in orbit 16363. The near real time (NRTI) product generation on orbits 16378 and 16379 have been likewise affected, the non time critical (OFFL) processing of these orbits is unaffected.

Finally, as an update to the news regarding the planned satellite manoeuvre we are pleased to announce that only a limited gap of one orbit of the non time critical processing has been evidenced, on orbit 16285. The manoeuvre was implemented with a new procedure prepared by the flight operations team reducing the period in which the TROPOMI sensing is interrupted. This significantly reduces the previous data gap of ~10 sensing orbits for similar manoeuvres. This has been made possible by an ESOC driven change to the on-board failure detection and recovery logic which make the spacecraft more resilient to payload anomalies.

During the period of the manoeuvre (orbits 16284,16285) the TROPOMI instrument continues to make its measurements, in principle both the near real time (NRTI) and non time critical (OFFL) processing can be slightly affected, since during the manoeuvre the instrument pointing can be non-nominal and the slight sensor temperature change with respect to normal operations. Product quality checks indicate that in this case the temperature changes have not had significant impact.