Antarctica glaciers are sentinels of climate change, and their variations are scrutinized by climate scientists all over the world. Recently, Sentinel-3 SRAL has changed its acquisition mode from Closed-Loop mode to Open-Loop mode, a capability that has demonstrated very efficient measurement acquisition performance over continental waters. The acquisition mode change is active since December 9th, 2021 and is set for some specific locations over the Priestley and Aviator glaciers, located in Victoria Land, Antarctica.
The Copernicus Sentinel-3 Surface Topography Mission (STM) provides extremely valuable surface elevation information over inland waters, sea ice and land ice, thanks to its orbit that covers high-latitude polar regions, and to its SAR altimeter, which retrieves high-resolution along-track elevation measurements. To ensure that these measurements can be used with confidence, adequate validation of the geophysical retrieval methods, processing algorithms and corrections must be performed, considering independent observations as Reference Measurements.
St3TART (Sentinel-3 Topography mission Assessment through Reference Techniques) is an EU and ESA funded project led by NOVELTIS with a consortium of 17 European partners (CNES, DTU, NPI, vorteX.io, LEGOS, Ocean Next, CLS, LOCEAN, IGE, SERTIT, GIS, CNR-IRPI, NPL, DT/INSU, IRD, M2C, SYRTE). This project aims to generalise the concept of Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) for validation of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 STM over inland waters, sea ice and land ice.
To that end, the St3TART project will not only collect existing data and measure new observations during field campaigns, but it will also ensure that these observations meet the criteria of FRM standards and can be used in an operational way for the validation of the Sentinel-3 Land topography mission.
The FRM data will be made available to all users through an FRM Data Hub platform. Lastly, the SCalSIT tool will help identify relevant Copernicus Sentinel-3 STM validation sites over inland waters.
More information about St3TART can be found on the project website: https://sentinel3-st3tart.noveltis.fr/
ESA is pleased to announce the availability of Copernicus Sentinel-3 altimetry data set generated by the NEW ESA Sentinel-3 Thematic Instrument Processing Facilities (T-IPFs). Planned to be deployed in spring 2022 by the ESA Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS), the LAND T-IPFs are dedicated and specialized delay-Doppler and Level-2 processing chains over Sea-Ice (SI), Land Ice (LI) and Hydrological (HY) surfaces.
Following the previous news on the Sentinel-1B anomaly that occurred on 23 December 2021, very detailed investigations related to the satellite power system’s affected unit are on-going, and will require some additional weeks.
The objective is to identify the root cause of the anomaly and then possibly perform new attempts for the reactivation of the unit.
The satellite remains under control, the thermal control system works properly and the regular orbit control manoeuvres are routinely performed.
We apologise for the inconvenience caused.
Due to some issue detected on SL_L1.004.04 and SL__LST.004.05.00 processing baseline some delays is expected in delivering of SLSTR NTC production and probably in SYN production also. Problem is expected for Copernicus Sentinel 3A starting from sensing 19/01/2022T00:49:52 and for Copernicus Sentinel S3B starting from sensing 19/01/2022T01:51:23
In order to fix issue detected, we turn back to previous processing baseline that will remain operational until further notice.
Copernicus Sentinel 3A SLSTR Production starting from orbit #30884, sensing 2022-01-21T13:48:27 approx, will be generated with previous baseline.
Copernicus Sentinel S3B SLTR Production starting from orbit #19491, sensing 2022-01-21T14:49:29 approx will be generated with previous baseline.
A maintenance activity on infrastructure of the data hub services, is planned on 25 January 2022 from 08:00 to 16:00 UTC.
During this period, service interruptions and publication delay for all Sentinel-1,Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 products, might occasionally occur on the following hubs:
We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause to your activities.
Further to our news of 15 December 2021, we are pleased to confirm the imminent deployment of Processing Baseline 04.00 on 25 January 2022.
As anticipated, the transition from the present baseline (currently PB-3.01 for both Level-1C and Level-2A products) to the new baseline PB-04.00 will be applied starting at a given Datatake of transition for each of the Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B production flows.
Referring to the applicable Sentinel-2 Acquisition Plans for Sentinel-2A and for Sentinel-2B, the first Sentinel-2A/B Datatakes that will result featuring the new PB-04.00 are the following:
Sentinel-2A: the Datatake identified as "34435-1”, with sensing start time at 03:20 UTC approximately, along Sentinel-2A orbit 34435- Sentinel-2B: the Datatake identidied as "25526-1”, with sensing start time at 02:29 UTC approximately, along Sentinel-2B orbit 25526
It is further highlighted that the latest version of SNAP (available here) is supporting the new products format, and that the Sen2Cor plug-in processor has been updated as described here.
We would like to wish all users a smooth and successful transition.
We are pleased to announce the release of new processing baseline OL_L1.002.22.00 for Copernicus Sentinel-3 concerning the following products and cut-dates:
More information about the changes and the characterisation of the new products is available in the following product notices:
The associated L1 and L2 Sentinel-3 Product Data Format Specification documents are available on Sentinel Online.
We are pleased to announce the release of new processing baseline SL_L1.004.04 and SL__LST.004.05.00 for Copernicus Sentinel-3 concerning the following products and cut-dates:
More information about the changes and the characterisation of the new products is available in the following product notices:
Note: the new SL_2_LST processing baseline has no impact on the content of the products, so there is no specific product notice issued.
The associated L1 and L2 Sentinel-3 Product Data Format Specification documents are available on Sentinel Online.
Due to Copernicus Sentinel-3A orbit correction manoeuvre, SLSTR products and SYNERGY products degradation is expected for sensing time from 19/01/2022T07:35:25 to 19/01/2022T07:35:25
Calling on all interested users of Sentinel data, who would like to submit their results, turning their experiences into 'success stories'.
If you have a good story to tell, of how any of the Sentinel satellites are producing data that bring benefit to your work and/or to society, please contact the Sentinel Online Editor Malì Cecere at: mali.cecere@ejr-quartz.com with your proposals.
