NEWS on Envisat, ERS-2, Cryosat, SMOS, ADM and Proba

EO User Services News - 14 November 2008 -

NEWS on ERS-2, Envisat, etc.

Latest News

NEWS on ERS-2

NEWS on ENVISAT

GOCE, SMOS, Cryosat & Aeolus

3rd Party Missions

EO Events

EO -Tools & Documen-tation

EO Help

HIGHLIGHTS

Earth Watching

· "Image of the week" over Cuba: See new web page and images of the Paloma Hurricane (Cuba) at http://earth.esa.int/ew/cyclones/Hurricane_Paloma-nov08/

Satellites:

· GOCE launch postponed

· ENVISAT AATSR: Envisat AATSR full mission availability via MERCI

· SCIAMACHY SCIAMACHY- Operations change from 5 November to 2 December 2008

Earth Observation Documentation/Tools:

· New release of BEAT 6.0.0 and VISAN 3.2.0

ENVISAT

SCIAMACHY - Operations change from 5 November to 2 December 2008

Due to special investigations during the period 5 November to 2 December 2008, the integration time for the clusters 16 and 18 will be set to the same integration time as cluster 17. See more information at: http://earth.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5866

ENVISAT orbit control manoeuvre (OCM)

An Envisat orbit control manoeuvre (OCM) is scheduled for 17-18 November 2008. Precise instrument unavailability periods when available, will be communicated at http://earth.esa.int

ERS-2

ERS-2 orbit control manoeuvre (OCM)

An ERS-2 orbit control manoeuvre (OCM) is scheduled for 20 November 2008. Precise instrument unavailability when available, will be communicated at http://earth.esa.int

ERS-2 LBR service interruption - McMurdo Facility - Antarctica

Antenna upgrades required at the McMurdo facility shall impact ERS-2 LBR service commencing on 20 October 2008. The downtime is scheduled to continue until 14 January 2009 but services may be restored earlier. Some passes may be supported between the various phases as the upgrade activity progresses

Beijing (BE), China - station availability

The previously announced hardware failure at the Beijing station in China has been solved, and the ERS-2 data reception has been resumed as from 31 October 2008.

Malindi (ML), Kenya - acquisition campaign

An ERS-2 SAR acquisition campaign for the Malindi (ML) station in Kenya has been planned for the period from 11 October to 15 November 2008.

Baseline planning is available in the catalogue. Additional user requests should be submitted as soon as possible.

Instrument/Ground Segment Unavailability. See ERS-2

SMOS

SMOS information is available at http://www.esa.int/esaLP/LPsmos.html

GOCE

GOCE launch postponed. The foreseen 27 October launch date of GOCE has had to be postponed to allow the enquiry board time to conclude its work. A new launch date will be announced here as soon as possible.

Further information is available at: http://www.esa.int/esaLP/LPgoce.html

ADM Aeolus

ADM-Aeolus information is available at http://www.esa.int/esaLP/LPadmaeolus.html

Cryosat-2

New plans are coming up: Cryosat-2

Third Party Missions:

Access to KOMPSAT-2 data for Category-1 users

While access to the Kompsat-2 Mission has been opened to cat-1 users in May, ordering of Kompsat-2 archived products is now enabled in EOLI-SA

For more information and submission of a Category-1 proposal, see the Kompsat-2 information area on the EOPI portal at : http://eopi.esa.int/Kompsat2

SPOT data available to cat-1 users

Following renewal of the agreement with SPOT IMAGE, SPOT1-4 data are again available for category-1 use.

Existing projects can restart ordering; new users shall submit a proposal at http://eopi.esa.int

See 3^rd party missions

Earth Observation events

2008 SSE Service Providers & Sensors Anywhere (SANY) Workshops

28 - 30 October 2008 - ESRIN, Frascati - Italy

Further information at: http://www.congrex.nl/08m32/

POLINSAR Workshop

26 - 30 January 2009 - ESRIN, Frascati - Italy

Deadline for submission : 30 September 2008

Further information is available at: http://earth.esa.int/resources/workshops/

2nd ALOS PI Symposium

3 to 7 November in Rhodes, Greece.

Further information is available at: http://earth.esa.int/ALOS2008

International Radiation Symposium (IRS 2008)

Further information is available at: http://www.irs2008.org.br/site/index.php

User Service

EOLI-SA v.6.0.1

The interferometric search function in EOLISA has been greatly improved with the latest version of EOLISA (v.6.0.1) and now fully supports ERS/Envisat cross

mission interferometry (with baseline calculation).

New SSE service: MERIS RR Cloud-free product for Cat-1 users

A new "MERIS RR Cloud-free product for Cat-1 users" service allowing Category-1 users to search and download MERIS Level 1 Reduced Resolution (RR) products with an associated cloud coverage label is now available on the SSE (Service Support Environment) Portal.

See further information at http://envisat.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5572

Two new services on SSE (Service Support Environment) portal

· Calibration of user image

· Spectral pre-classification of user image

Datapolicy

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o NEWS on ERS-2

● Beijing (BE), China - station availability

The previously announced hardware failure at the Beijing station in China has been solved, and the ERS-2 data reception has been resumed as from 31 October 2008.

● ERS-2 LBR service interruption - McMurdo Facility - Antarctica

● O'Higgins (TF), Antarctica acquisition campaign

The start of the first ERS-2 acquisition campaign has been postponed to 19 September, instead of 14 September 2008 as previously announced.

The two campaigns are therefore planned for:

19 Sep 2008 - 12 Dec 2008

23 Jan 2009 - 19 Mar 2009

Users wishing to submit their own requests should send them to the EOHelp Order desk (eohelp@esa.int)

● Dissemination of ERS ALT.WAP dataset: change of media

Starting with ERS-2 cycle 119, the ALT.WAP dataset will be distributed on DVD instead of exabyte.

● Unavailability of ATSR-2

ATSR-2 data have not been available since 5 February 2008 on account of a scan mirror problem in which the mirror failed to restart following a routine switch-off. Despite several attempts, the mirror has still not achieved normal operation. The recovery activities are still ongoing. The investigations so far, based on available science data, are indicating that the Scan Mirror did turn on the first attempt albeit with very poor performance. After this first attempt the scan mechanism was turned off by the instrument, having exceeded its normal safe temperature limits. Continuous efforts are being made in an attempt to restart the mechanism. Based on the previous experience from 1995/96, it is expected that the process will take some time before a conclusion can be reached.

● ATSR-2 IRR unavailable

Due to an instrument anomaly, the ATSR-2/IRR has been switched-off since 5 February 2008. Investigations are still ongoing.

See information available under "News on ERS Mission" on the ESA Earthnet Online Home page at:

http://earth.esa.int/

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ERS-2 LBR data

● Coverage

See the plot of Stations coverage supporting the ERS LBR mission

· GOME NRT are provided by DLR and KNMI via the following web sites:

DLR: http://www.wdc.dlr.de/data_products/SERVICES/GOMENRT/index.html

KNMI: http://www.knmi.nl/gome_fd/lvl2/lvl2.html

· WINDSCATT NRT are provided by KNMI via the following web site:

KNMI: http://www.knmi.nl/scatterometer

ERS-2 SAR - Acquisition Plan

Planned ERS-2 SAR acquisitions for the coming week:

The plots are available on the ESA Remote Sensing Web site, Earthnet Online, at http://earth.esa.int/sarplan

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ERS-2 / ENVISAT - SAR / ASAR / MERIS - Special Acquisition Plan

Specific SAR / ASAR acquisitions have been planned to monitor natural disasters. More details are available under "Planning" on the new ESA Earth Watching Web pages at (ULR) http://earth.esa.int/ew

Earth Watching "Image of the week"

See new web page and images of the Paloma Hurricane (Cuba) at

http://earth.esa.int/ew/cyclones/Hurricane_Paloma-nov08/

Planning over the Vietnam flood of 7 November 2008

Satellite: ENVISAT

Date Orbit Instrument Mode

07-Nov-2008 34970 ASA_WS_H/H

08-Nov-2008 34992 ASA_WS_H/H

10-Nov-2008 35013 ASA_WS_V/V

ERS-2 Instrument/Ground Segment Unavailability

ERS-2 instruments unavailability periods are now available at:

http://earth.esa.int/ers/instruments/availability/

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o NEWS on ENVISAT

SCIAMACHY - Operations change from 5 November to 2 December 2008

Due to special investigations during the period 5 November to 2 December 2008, the integration time for the clusters 16 and 18 will be set to the same integration time as cluster 17.

See more information at: http://earth.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5866

Unplanned Artemis Unavailability

Due to an emergency ATV-Artemis activity, the Artemis support to the Envisat mission will be unavailable on 29 September 2008 in the following time windows:

09:46:03 - 10:11:41 UTC

11:14:46 - 12:08:10 UTC

The ATV mission, which is completing its re-entry phase, cannot be supported as planned by TDRS (the NASA's Tracking and Data Relay satellite). The TDRS control station at Houston will be in fact unavailable due to maintenance works linked to the damages caused by the pass of the IKE hurricane over that region. Given the criticity of the ATV phase, and as per procedures, Artemis will therefore give priority to ATV support.

The cancelled support will impact only ASAR High Rate and MERIS Full Resolution data. Sensing time may differ from the values reported above in case of data recorded on-board. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause.

RA-2, MWR and DORIS instruments have continued their measurements without interruption.

Waiver Notice for Envisat MIPAS Level-1 data

Due to a temporary misconfiguration in the D-PAC processing chain, some consolidated MIP_NL_1P products have been generated containing the incorrect processing stage flag ('R' instead of 'P') in their MPH as well as in their filename. Users are invited to disregard these products and download the newly reprocessed ones.

Further information at: http://envisat.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5808

See image of the Arctic Ocean swirls

Envisat MERIS FR image acquired 14 June 2008, captures marginal ice zone of the Greenland Sea during the onset of spring melting. See article and image at

http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEM4LNRHKHF_index_0.html

See images of the Antarctic ice shelf break-up

Wilkins Ice Shelf has experienced further break-up with an area of about 160 km² breaking off from 30 May to 31 May 2008. ESA’s Envisat satellite captured the event – the first ever-documented episode to occur in winter. See article and image animation at

http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMG58VG3HF_index_0.html

AATSR instrument outgassing

An outgassing has been scheduled for the AATSR instrument from 23 June 2008 07:42:00 and is expected to be completed by 26 June 2008 15:45:00. See further information at

http://envisat.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5559

New POD (Precise Orbit Determination) Standards

A new POD orbit configuration (POD GDR-C configuration) has lately been put into operations by CNES. See further information at:

http://envisat.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5551

MERIS FR service over North America

ESA is further expanding the Envisat dataset available free of charge on Internet with the opening a new service for MERIS Full Resolution data acquired over North America. This new service is established in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and will provide access to all recent MERIS Full Resolution (FR) Level 1 products (MER_FRS_1P) and Level 2 products (MER_FRS_2P) covering North America.

See coverage in jpg file and Google Earth kml file available at:

http://envisat.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5541

See MERIS FR "Image of the week" over Canada and related article on the new online service for MERIS Full Resolution data acquired over North America on the ESA Portal at:

http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMIZENKRGF_index_0.html

The new service is implemented in two phases:

[1] Pre-operational phase (from 19 May 2008): raw data are acquired in Canada by CCRS stations (Gatineau and Prince Albert), transferred to Europe, processed at the ESA Kiruna facility and made available via the Kiruna Rolling Archive or the Envisat Web File Server (EWFS). MERIS FR Level 1 products are available on Internet between 4 and 10 hours after acquisition, MERIS FR Level 2 products are available on Internet between 8 and 24 hours after acquisition.

[2] Operational phase (foreseen in early 2009): raw data acquired in Canada will be processed in Canada, in order to provide faster access to MERIS FR resolution products. Details will be provided later.

To access the new service, a registration is needed at the ESA Earth Observation Principal Investigator portal (http://eopi.esa.int). Existing registered ESA PI's can simply request access to the new service through the ESA EO Help Desk (eohelp@esa.int). The data collections are called "MERIS FRS Level 1 North America" and "MERIS FRS Level 2 North America". The new service will complement the similar service for European coverage (data collections called "MERIS FRS Level 1 Europe" and "MERIS FRS Level 2 Europe") already available on Rolling Archive and EWFS.

The MERIS FR products are kept on-line for at least 14 days after acquisition. Access to older data is possible through Category 1 use projects (on-demand production and distribution). We take this opportunity to remind that MERIS Reduced Resolution products are also available free of charge on Internet, both in NRT (within 3 hours from acquisition) and in archive. More information on Envisat is available at http://envisat.esa.int. The mission web site includes information about MERIS product specifications and processing algorithms.

ASAR Processing Facility version 4.07

The PF-ASAR version 4.07 has progressively been transferred to operations in the Envisat Ground Segment between 13 and 21 May 2008. All ASAR data are since then being processed to Level 1 with the new IPF version. The main changes in the new processor version are:

- Improvement of the Doppler estimation which correct timing issues in the WSS data

- Enhancement of the scalloping in WSM data

The applicable product specification has not been changed and is available on the Envisat Product Specifications web page:

http://envisat.esa.int/support-docs/productspecs/index.htm

Switch back to Kiruna-Artemis mission scenario

As anticipated last week, following the successful docking of the ATV to the ISS, Artemis is again available for the transmission of Envisat data to ESRIN. The switch back to the Kiruna-Artemis scenario was successfully performed as planned on 7 and 8 April 2008.

During the ATV attached phase to ISS (i.e. until August 2008), an earlier booking of the use of Artemis by Envisat will be needed; in addition, Artemis might be unavailable for Envisat during very short periods. Despite our maximum effort to minimize impact to users, this may result in additional constraints in accepting ASAR acquisition orders. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience that this may bring to the Envisat users.

For more information see

http://envisat.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5428

ERS-2 / ENVISAT - SAR / ASAR / MERIS - Special Acquisition Plan

see under ERS-2 (special acquisition plan)

RA-2 S-Band Chain A Power Drop

After more than 5 years of operations the Envisat RA-2 (A-Side) S-band transmission power suddenly dropped on 17 January 2008, 23:23:40, UTC. Consequently, all S-band parameters, as well as the dual ionospheric correction are not relevant anymore and MUST NOT be used from this date onwards. Ionospheric corrections from model are available in RA-2 products.

Further information is available at

http://envisat.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5408

MIPAS and SCHIAMACHY disclaimers

Updated disclaimers for respectively MIPAS and SCHIAMACHY products are available on the Envisat Web site at:

http://envisat.esa.int/handbooks/availability/

Envisat Instrument/Ground Segment Unavailability

· Due to on-board anomaly the following instrument unavailability period has been recorded:

SCIA 22 -Aug- 2008 06:43:54 UTC to 23 -Aug- 2008 16:42:10

· RA-2 S-Band Chain A Power Drop, see above (news) and below (ENVISAT instruments)

ENVISAT Planned Unavailabilities

No news

ENVISAT Instruments

● ASAR

No news

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● RA2

S-Band anomaly solved

The so-called “S-Band anomaly”, affecting few percents of the altimetric data since the early days of the Envisat RA-2 Commissioning Phase, is no more present. The instrumental cause of the anomalous behaviour has been identified by Thales Alenia Space as a problem of synchronisation lost between S/W and H/W in the RA-2 digital unit (SPSA). An on-board patch solving the problem has been developed and successfully uploaded on the 27th of June 2007.

Since then no occurrences of the anomaly have been detected. Moreover, an algorithm for the S-Band waveform reconstruction has been developed which will enable recovery of data affected by the anomaly in the past. The correction will be achieved with the Full Mission Reprocessing Campaign scheduled for the second quarter of 2008

Altimetry Instrument Processing Facility (IPF)

A new Envisat Altimetry Instrument Processing Facility (IPF) (version 5.03) is operational since 19 September, 2006. It enhances the level 1B and level 2 data products by correcting observed anomalies.

More information at

http://earth.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=4318

RA-2: recovery after switch back to Side A

An anomaly has been intermittently affecting the Envisat RA-2 Ultra Stable Oscillator (USO) since February 2006. As part of the investigation tests, the instrument sub-system Radio Frequency Module (RFM) was switched to its B-side on 15 May 2006, the objective being to verify whether the B-side was working correctly and to progress in the investigations into the A-side USO anomaly.

After a few days of promising operations with the RFM B-side, its S-band transmission power suddenly dropped on 20 May 2006 around 14:00 UTC. The investigations are currently re-oriented in understanding this second anomaly, unrelated to the USO anomaly on A-side. Should the second anomaly be solved (S-band power), ESA would proceed with a regular commissioning phase of the instrument with RFM on B-side. Otherwise, the instrument RFM would be reconfigured to its A-side and on-ground corrections for the USO anomaly would be gradually implemented.

The Envisat RA-2 sensor has been successfully reconfigured on its nominal side (RFSS A-side) and was commanded back into Measurement Mode on June 21, 2006 at 13.20.15.000 UTC time.

The analysis of the RA-2 data shows an expected behaviour of the RA-2 parameters but also confirmed the persistence of the abnormal RA-2 Ultra-Stable Oscillator (USO) behaviour affecting the Altimetric Range by few meters.

The distribution of RA-2 IGDR products, resumed with the switch back to RA-2 A-side, shall be effective from June 24, 2006 onwards.