Sentinel-1 Mission Operations Concept
Potin, Pierre; Schmuck, Siegfried; Bargellini, Pier; Rosich, Betlem
ESA, ITALY

Sentinel-1, the next European C-Band SAR mission following ERS and ENVISAT, will be operated based on a stable and predefined observation and production scenario in line with the overall GMES/Sentinel operations strategy. The observation scenario is elaborated following a process which includes the requirements collection (from GMES services, ESA and EU Member States, the continuity of ERS/ENVISAT projects, the scientific community, etc.), the execution of a series of simulations (coverage analysis taking into account the system technical constraints) and the generation and consolidation of the observation plans. These plans will cover the various phases of the operations, starting with the so-called GMES Space Component ramp-up phase and reaching the Full Operations Capacity with the Sentinel-1 mission constellation of 2 satellites. Regular revision and adaptations of the observation plans will be performed during operations to cope with the evolution of requirements from the various user communities and the gradual increase of the operational capacity of the overall system. The paper will describe the above process, including the source of observation requirements, the main technical constraints to be taken into account and will present a first observation plan covering the initial period of the ramp-up phase, starting at the end of the Sentinel-1A satellite commissioning phase.