Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36

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Remote Sensing of Environment

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Sentinel-2: ESA's Optical High-Resolution Mission for GMES Operational Services

M. Drusch a,⁎, U. Del Bello a, S. Carlier a, O. Colin b, V. Fernandez a, F. Gascon b, B. Hoersch b, C. Isola a,
P. Laberinti a, P. Martimort a, A. Meygret c, F. Spoto a, O. Sy a, F. Marchese d, P. Bargellini d
a
ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
b
ESRIN, Frascati, Italy
c
CNES, Toulouse, France
d
ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) is a joint initiative of the European Commission
Received 23 December 2010 (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA), designed to establish a European capacity for the provision
Received in revised form 18 November 2011 and use of operational monitoring information for environment and security applications. ESA's role in
Accepted 21 November 2011
GMES is to provide the definition and the development of the space- and ground-related system elements.
Available online 29 February 2012
GMES Sentinel-2 mission provides continuity to services relying on multi-spectral high-resolution optical ob-
Keywords:
servations over global terrestrial surfaces. The key mission objectives for Sentinel-2 are: (1) To provide sys-
Sentinel-2 tematic global acquisitions of high-resolution multi-spectral imagery with a high revisit frequency, (2) to
GMES provide enhanced continuity of multi-spectral imagery provided by the SPOT (Satellite Pour l'Observation
Remote sensing de la Terre) series of satellites, and (3) to provide observations for the next generation of operational prod-
Optical multi-spectral instrument ucts such as land-cover maps, land change detection maps, and geophysical variables. Consequently,
Land cover classification Sentinel-2 will directly contribute to the Land Monitoring, Emergency Response, and Security services. The
corresponding user requirements have driven the design toward a dependable multi-spectral Earth-
observation system featuring the Multi Spectral Instrument (MSI) with 13 spectral bands spanning from
the visible and the near infrared to the short wave infrared. The spatial resolution varies from 10 m to
60 m depending on the spectral band with a 290 km field of view. This unique combination of high spatial
resolution, wide field of view and spectral coverage will represent a major step forward compared to current
multi-spectral missions. The mission foresees a series of satellites, each having a 7.25-year lifetime over a 15-year
period starting with the launch of Sentinel-2A foreseen in 2013. During full operations two identical satellites
will be maintained in the same orbit with a phase delay of 180° providing a revisit time of five days at the equator.
This paper provides an overview of the GMES Sentinel-2 mission including a technical system concept overview,
image quality, Level 1 data processing and operational applications.
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) is a
European Union (EU) led initiative designed to establish a European ca-
pacity for the provision and use of operational monitoring information
for environment and security applications. This capacity is seen to be
composed of three modules, which together constitute the functional
GMES ‘system’: (1) The production and dissemination of information
in support of EU policies for Environment and Security; (2) the mecha-
nisms needed to ensure a permanent dialog between all stakeholders
and in particular between providers and users; and (3) the legal, finan-
cial, organizational and institutional framework to ensure the function-
ing of the system and its evolution.
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 31 71 565 8868.
E-mail address: matthias.drusch@esa.int (M. Drusch).
Many elements of the modules already exist but have been conceived,
designed and managed in isolation, thus limiting interoperability and
production of relevant information. The coherence, efficiency and sus-
tainability of a shared information system for Europe will be the added
value of GMES. Developing compatibility between the existing elements,
establishing cooperation between the organizations and filling the gaps
where necessary will achieve this goal.
Within the GMES program, ESA is responsible for the development of
the Space Component, a fully operational space-based capability to sup-
ply earth-observation data to sustain environmental information ser-
vices in Europe, namely Geoland2, SAFER (Services and Applications For
Emergency Response) and G-MOSAIC (GMES services for Management
of Operations, Situation Awareness and Intelligence for regional Crises).
These Services, implemented in parallel by the European Commission,
will provide value-added data and services to the GMES end-users; the
European Environmental Agency (EEA) and the Member States are re-
sponsible for the in-situ component.

0034-4257/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.rse.2011.11.026
26 M. Drusch et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36
The Sentinel missions (Donlon et al., 2012-this issue; Ingmann et
al., 2012-this issue; Torres et al., 2012-this issue) are GMES dedicated
Earth Observation missions composing the essential elements of the
Space Component. In the global GMES framework, they are comple-
mented by other satellites made available by third-parties or by ESA
and coordinated in the synergistic system through the GMES Data-
Access system (see http://gmesdata.esa.int) versus the Services.
The GMES Sentinel-2 mission provides continuity to services rely-
ing on multi-spectral high spatial resolution optical observations over
global terrestrial surfaces (Martimort et al., 2007). Sentinel-2 will
capitalize on the technology and the vast experience acquired in Eu-
rope and the United States to sustain the operational supply of data
for services such as Risk Management (floods and forest fires, subsi-
dence and landslides), European Land Use/Land Cover State and
Changes, Forest Monitoring, Food Security/Early Warning Systems,
Water Management and Soil Protection, Urban Mapping, Natural
Hazards, and Terrestrial Mapping for Humanitarian Aid and Develop-
ment. The design of the Sentinel-2 mission aims at an operational
multi-spectral Earth-observation system that complements the Land-
sat and SPOT (Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre) observations
and improves data availability for users.
The SPOT remote sensing program was initiated in 1978 by France
in partnership with Belgium and Sweden. SPOT 1 was launched with
Ariane 2 on February 22, 1986. SPOT 2 joined SPOT 1 in orbit on Jan-
uary 22, 1990 and SPOT 3 followed on September 26, 1993. The satel-
lite payloads included two identical HRV (High Resolution Visible)
imaging instruments that were able to operate in two modes, either
simultaneously or individually. The two spectral modes are panchro-
matic and multispectral. The panchromatic band has a resolution of
10 m, and the three multispectral bands have resolutions of 20 m
with scene sizes of 3600 km 2 and a revisit interval of one to four
days, depending on the latitude. Since the deorbitation of SPOT 2 in
2009, after almost 20 years of service, satellites SPOT 4 and 5 together
ensure the provision of high-resolution SPOT images and of VEGETA-
TION global images. Spot 4 offers an additional band in the short wave
infra-red when compared against SPOT 1, 2, 3; SPOT 5 features an in-
creased spatial resolution of 5 m to 20 m and higher absolute location
accuracy compared to its predecessors. The continuity of the SPOT
program is planned with the development of the Pleiades system, as
well as Spot 6 and 7. Spot 6 and SPOT 7 will form a constellation of
Earth imaging satellites providing high resolution wide-swath data
up to 2023 (http://www.spotimage.com/web/en/3319-spot-6-and-
spot-7-extending-spot-continuity-to-high-resolution-wide-swath-
imagery.php) with scheduled launches in 2012 and 2014, respectively
(http://eoedu.belspo.be/en/satellites/spot.htm). SPOT 6 and 7 will ac-
quire observations in five bands: A panchromatic band with 1.5 m spa-
tial resolution, blue, red and green bands, and a near-infrared band; all
obtained at 6 m spatial resolution. The imaging swath will be 60 km.
SPOT observations have been used primarily for cartography (e.g.
Gastellu-Etchegorry, 1989; Giles & Franklin, 1996), land cover classifica-
tion (e.g. Gong et al., 1992; Kanellopoulos et al., 1992) and land change
detection (e.g. Jensen et al., 1995; Lu et al., 2004).
The Landsat Program started in 1972 with the launch of the first sat-
ellite. Since then Landsat data have become key observations for monitor-
ing global change and have been a primary source of medium spatial
resolution Earth observations for a wide range of applications (e.g.
Special Issues on Landsat, 1984, 1985, 1997, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006).
Landsat satellites can be classified into three groups, based on sensor
and platform characteristics (Chander et al., 2009). The first group con-
sists of Landsat 1, Landsat 2 and Landsat 3 carrying the Multispectral
Scanner (MSS) sensor and the Return Beam Vidicon (RBV) camera. The
second group comprises Landsat 4 and Landsat 5 with the MSS and the
Thematic Mapper (TM). Landsat 7 includes the Enhanced Thematic Map-
per Plus (ETM+). The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM)/Landsat
8 will continue and advance the collection of Landsat data with a two-
sensor payload: The Operational Land Imager (OLI) will collect image
data for nine visible, near infrared and shortwave infra red bands with a
30 m spatial resolution (15 m for the panchromatic band); the Thermal
Infrared Sensor (TIRS) will collect data for two longwave thermal bands
with 100 m resolution. Both instruments are push broom sensors with
a 185 km cross-track field of view. For more details the reader is referred
to http://ldcm.nasa.gov/mission_details.html.
The Sentinel-2 mission will offer an unprecedented combination
of systematic global coverage of land surfaces, a high revisit of five
days at the equator under the same viewing conditions, high spatial
resolution (i.e. Landsat-type), and a wide field of view for multi-
spectral observations from 13 bands in the visible, near infra-red
and short wave infra-red part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The
spectral band coverage and the corresponding spatial resolutions
are shown in Fig. 1.
In this paper we present the current status of the Sentinel-2 mis-
sion after the completion of the satellite's Critical Design Review
(CDR), which is held at the end of phase C to judge the readiness
of the project to move into phase D by assessing the qualification
and validation status of the critical processes. We address the
space component including the platform and the instrument, the
ground segment, data and processing and the future applications.
The information is based on various ESA documents, for example
the Mission Requirements Document (MRD, ESA, 2010a) or the
Products Definition Document (ESA, 2010b). Additional information
can be found under http://www.esa.int/esaLP.
2. Mission overview
Frequent revisits of five days at the equator require two identical
Sentinel-2 satellites operating simultaneously favoring a small, cost-
effective and low-risk satellite. The orbit is Sun-synchronous at
786 km altitude (14 + 3/10 revolutions per day) with a 10:30 a.m.
descending node. This local time was selected as the best compromise
between minimizing cloud cover and ensuring suitable sun illumina-
tion. It is close to the Landsat local overpass time and matches SPOT's,
allowing the combination of Sentinel-2 data with historical images to
build long-term time series. The Sentinel-2 satellites will systemati-
cally acquire observations over land and coastal areas from − 56° to
84° latitude including islands larger 100 km 2, EU islands, all other
islands less than 20 km from the coastline, the whole Mediterranean
Sea, all inland water bodies and all closed seas. Over specific calibra-
tion sites, for example DOME-C in Antarctica, additional observations
will be made. The two satellites will work on opposite sides of the
orbit (Fig. 2). The first launch is planned in 2013. The key features
of the Sentinel-2 mission are summarized in Table 1.
The combination of the large swath of 290 km, spectral range,
coupled with the global and continuous acquisition requirement
with high-revisit frequency, will lead to the daily generation of
about 1.6 TBytes of compressed raw image data from the constella-
tion. The main data related to the Sentinel-2 system definition is pre-
sented in Table 2.
The 13 spectral bands span from the visible (VIS) and the near
infra-red (NIR) to the short wave infra-red (SWIR) at different spatial
resolutions at the ground ranging from 10 to 60 m (Table 3). The four
bands at 10 m resolution ensure compatibility with SPOT 4 and 5 and
meet the user requirements for land cover classification. The 20 m
resolution for six bands has been a requirement for other Level 2 pa-
rameters. Bands at 60 m are mainly dedicated for atmospheric correc-
tions and cloud screening (443 nm for aerosols retrieval, 940 nm for
water vapor correction and 1375 nm for cirrus detection). The 60 m
resolution is considered to be adequate to capture the spatial variabil-
ity of the atmospheric geophysical parameters. The normalized filter
transmissions for the 13 bands are shown in Fig. 3 together with
modeled TOA radiances for deciduous forest. The resulting data rate
fits the maximum downlink capacity for this mission design.
 M. Drusch et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36 27

Fig. 1. Spectral bands versus spatial resolution for the Sentinel-2 MSI, SPOT-6/7 and LDCM OLI instruments. The bar height is scaled with the swath width of the instruments. The
instruments' swaths are 290 km (MSI), 185 km (LDCM), and 60 km (SPOT).

3. System concept overview 3.1. Space segment

The Sentinel-2 end-to-end system will comprise two segments:
The space segment with the two orbiting satellites including their
payload instrument, and the ground segment. The ground segment
shall facilitate the data acquisition from the space segment, the data
processing, the archiving and dissemination as well as the control of
the mission as a whole.
3.1.1. Satellite and platform design
The Sentinel-2 satellite is based on a rather compact design that
ensures compatibility with small launchers like VEGA and Rockot.
The weight of the satellite is about 1.2 ton. The satellite lifetime is
specified as 7.25 years including a 3 months commissioning phase,
and the propellant is sized for 12 years, including provision for de-

Fig. 2. Sentinel-2 satellite orbital configuration (Astrium-GmbH).

28 M. Drusch et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36

Table 1 Table 3
Sentinel-2 mission features. Sentinel-2 spectral bands definition and Signal to noise ratio requirements for the
mission.
Mission features Data
Band number Central wavelength Band width Lref SNR @
Mission lifetime 15 years
(nm) (nm) (Wm− 2 sr− 1 μm− 1) Lref
Number of satellites 2
Nominal in orbit satellite lifetime 7.25 years with consumables for additional 1 443 20 129 129
5 years 2 490 65 128 154
Nominal orbit Sun synchronous 786 km (mean altitude), 3 560 35 128 168
10:30 LTDN 4 665 30 108 142
Land coverage − 56° to +84° 5 705 15 74.5 117
Global revisit time b 5 days 6 740 15 68 89
Global NRT latency b 2 h to reception on ground 7 783 20 67 105
High quality mission products Level 0, 1 8 842 115 103 174
Mission phases LEOP, commissioning, operational, de-orbiting 8b 865 20 52.5 72
9 945 20 9 114
10 1380 30 6 50
11 1610 90 4 100
orbiting maneuvers at end-of-life. The satellite is three-axis stabilized 12 2190 180 1.5 100
with an Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS) based on an ad-
vanced multi-head star tracker, a laser gyroscope and a dual-
frequency Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver. The satellite is designed to operate autonomously under nominal
The satellite is characterized by a modular configuration enabling or failure cases without updating its mission commands for a period
parallel development and integration of its main assemblies for of up to fifteen days. Retrieval and analysis of the satellite housekeep-
schedule optimization (Fig. 4). An aluminum frame divides the satel- ing telemetry are, however, scheduled to take place twice a day. Sat-
lite in a lower electronics equipment compartment and an upper in- ellite command and control and thermal control functions are
strument and sensors compartment. This frame interfaces to a implemented by patchable software resident within the onboard
cylindrical launcher adapter. The instrument and sensor plate com- computer. Most satellite functions are redounded for improved reli-
partment is stiffened by an Aluminum frame and closed by four ac- ability and availability.
cess and radiator panels. The top panel is providing accommodation
for the Multi Spectral Instrument (MSI). The critical sensor assembly 3.1.2. The Multi Spectral Instrument design
carrying the three star trackers and the laser gyroscopes package The MSI (Fig. 5) is based on the pushbroom concept. It features a
are accommodated on top of the payload instrument. The satellite Three Mirror Anastigmat (TMA) telescope with a pupil diameter of
configuration provides nadir pointing to the instrument and unob- about 150 mm, which is iso-statically mounted on the platform to
structed field of view for the star tracker optical heads and for the minimize thermo-elastic distortions. The optical design has been op-
X-/S-band communication and Global Positioning System (GPS) nav- timized to achieve state of the art imaging quality all across its
igation antennas. The Optical Communication Payload will also en- 290 km field of view. The telescope structure and the mirrors are
able repatriating the data via a geostationary data relay satellite. made of silicon carbide which allows minimizing thermo-elastic
Coarse pointing sensors are positioned to have an unobstructed field of deformations.
view with a deployed and rotating solar array. The platform equipment The visible and near infra-red (VNIR) focal plane is based on mono-
compartment accommodates on four sandwich panels and intermediate lithic Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) detectors
floor the electronics equipments, including the on board computer. Batte- while the short wave infra-red focal plane is based on Mercury Cadmium
ries are mounted outside for late integration. Units have been located to Telluride detectors (MCT) hybridized on a CMOS read-out circuit. Twelve
optimize thermal dissipations and center of gravity. The single wing VNIR and SWIR detectors are employed in a staggered configuration to
solar array is designed such as to limit in orbit mechanical disturbances cover the Field of View. The SWIR focal plane is passively thermo-
in its deployed and rotating configuration. The propulsion system is controlled around a temperature of 190 K. A dichroic beam-splitter pro-
designed as an independent module that can be integrated and tested vides the spectral separation of VNIR and SWIR channels. Spectral separa-
prior to its integration within the platform compartment. Optical align- tion in the various bands is provided by stripe filters mounted on top of
ment cubes are integrated on all sensitive equipments for derivation of the detectors.
accurate alignment vectors and transfer matrices to the satellite reference A full field/full pupil on-board diffuser will be employed for radio-
frame. metric calibration to guarantee a high quality radiometric performance.
State-of-the-art lossy compression based on wavelet transform is ap-
plied to reduce the data volume. The compression ratio (between 2
and 3) will be fine tuned for each spectral band to ensure that there is
Table 2
Sentinel-2 system parameters. no significant impact on image quality. The observation data are digi-
tized in 12 bit. A calibration and shutter mechanism is implemented
System features Data
to collect the sunlight after reflection by a diffuser and to prevent the in-
Evolution Need for 4 satellites to fulfill 15 years of operations strument from direct viewing the sun in orbit and from contamination
Ground station scenario Kiruna, Svalbard, Maspalomas, Prince Albert, plus during launch. The average observation time per orbit, which is the
(for payload data recovery) Local user stations
Security Authentication of commands
time during which observations are being recorded over land and coast-
Reliability > 0.7 al areas, is 17 min; the peak value is 32 min. The instrument mass is ap-
Availability > 97% proximately 290 kg.
Geo-location (2sigma) wo GCP b 20 m
Swath 290 km
3.1.3. Assembly, integration and testing
Modes of operation Nominal mode, support modes, safe mode
Maximum imaging 32 min per 100 min orbit The satellite Assembly, Integration and Testing (AIT) program
Nominal launcher Rockot (1225 kg) comprises three real-time test environments: A functional verifica-
Back-up launcher VEGA (1226 kg) tion Software Test Bed (STB) complemented by several software val-
Satellite launch mass 1225 kg (with 70 kg margin included) idation facilities, an Engineering Functional Model (EFM), and the
Satellite dimensions (stowed) 3390 mm × 1630 mm × 2350 mm
satellite Protoflight model (PFM). All the above test environments
 M. Drusch et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36
Fig. 3. Normalized filter transmissions and modeled TOA radiances for deciduous forests.
share the core Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) elements
and the Telemetry and Telecommand data bases to facilitate the reus-
ability and transfer of the test procedures as well as dynamical
models used to recreate the satellite in flight environment for func-
tional and performance verification and for software development.
The Satellite Environmental Test Campaign of the Sentinel satel-
lites will be conducted at the European Space Research and Technol-
ogy Centre's (ESTEC) Test Centre. Throughout the environmental
tests the System Functional Tests, the Mission Simulation Tests, the
propulsion and solar array deployment tests are executed and the
System Validation Tests are conducted from ESA's European Space
Operations Centre (ESOC).
The Multispectral Instrument follows a thorough integration and
test program based in two steps approach. The MSI verification program
starts with an Engineering Model (EM) program dedicated to an early
verification of the VNIR and SWIR focal planes opto-mechanical integra-
tion, and an electrical coupling allowing a first end-to-end characteriza-
tion of MSI detection chains performance. Then the MSI completes its
verification using flight hardware undergoing a qualification program
including a full characterization of geometrical, optical and radiometric
performance made at instrument level.
3.1.4. Launch campaign and early in orbit operations
After a successful Flight Acceptance Review and pending the readi-
ness of the Ground Segment to conduct system operations and mission
exploitation, the satellite will be transported to the launch site for final
integration, validation, and launch preparations including fuelling.
These activities performed by a joint team lead by ESA and involving
the industrial Prime and Core team partners will last for about one
month. Following lift-off, the launcher will inject the satellite in its op-
erational orbit. From separation by the launcher upper stage, an auto-
matic sequence piloted by the onboard software will deploy the three
panels of the solar array, initiate the rotation of the solar array drive
mechanism, and initialize the acquisition of the satellite local normal
pointing such as the satellite can be operated by the Flight Operations
Segment at ESOC. This critical phase will only last a few orbits before
the satellite switch-on and in orbit verification phase.
After a successful Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) satellite
functions will be incrementally switched on and functionally verified.
The satellite attitude and orbit control, the telecommunication links,
and the thermal equilibrium of the satellite will be characterized.
After the payload instrument switch-on and health characterization,
first images will be acquired and processed simultaneously by the
Level-1C Ground Prototype Processor (GPP) and by the PDGS opera-
tional processor. Data performance and quality indicators will be de-
rived from these measurements; performance comparisons between
PDGS and GPP will be performed to confirm compliance to mission
29
requirements and to derive a strategy for periodic instrument in
orbit and ground processing characterization. Following the satellite
and ground segment functional verification, calibration and perfor-
mance characterization, the In Orbit Commissioning Review shall de-
cide releasing operationally the Sentinel-2 system.
3.2. Ground Segment
The Sentinel-2 Ground Segment is composed of the Flight Opera-
tions Segment (FOS) and the Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS).
3.2.1. Flight Operations Segment
The Flight Operations Segment (FOS) is responsible for all flight
operations of the Sentinel-2 spacecraft including monitoring and con-
trol, execution of all platform activities and commanding of the pay-
load schedules. It is based at ESOC, Darmstadt in Germany and
comprises the Ground Station and Communications Network, the
Flight Operations Control Centre and the General Purpose Communi-
cation Network.
Through the Ground Station and Communications Network telem-
etry, telecommand and tracking operations are performed using the
S-band telecommunication subsystem of the satellite. The S-band
ground station used throughout all mission phases will be the ESA Kiru-
na terminal (complemented by two additional backup TT&C stations).
The Flight Operations Control Centre (FOCC) includes the Sentinels Mis-
sion Control System (supporting hardware and software telecommand
coding and transfer, Housekeeping Telemetry (HKTM) data archiving
and processing tasks essential for controlling the mission), the Sentinels
Mission Scheduling System (supporting command request handling
and the planning and scheduling of spacecraft/payload operations),
the specific Sentinel-2 Spacecraft Simulator (supporting procedure val-
idation, operator training and the simulation campaign before each
major phase of the mission), and the Sentinels Flight Dynamics System
(supporting all activities related to attitude and orbit determination and
prediction, preparation of slew and orbit maneuvers, spacecraft dynam-
ics evaluation and navigation). A General Purpose Communication Net-
work facilitates the services for exchanging data with any other external
system during all mission phases.
The HKTM from the spacecraft will be down linked every orbit
using dedicated X-band stations and retrieved by the FOS for off-
line processing. Twice a day and during special operations (e.g.
Launch and Early Operations Phase, Commissioning activities) the
data will also be retrieved via a 2 Mbps S-band link.
3.2.2. Payload Data Ground Segment
The PDGS (Fig. 6) is responsible for payload and downlink planning,
data acquisition, processing, archiving and downstream distribution of
30 M. Drusch et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36

Fig. 4. Sentinel-2 satellite architecture (Astrium-GmbH).

the Sentinel-2 satellite data, while contributing to the overall monitor-
ing of the payload and platform in coordination with the FOS.
The systematic activities of the PDGS include the coordinated plan-
ning of the mission sub-systems and all processes cascading from the
data acquired from the Sentinel-2 constellation, mainly: (1) The automat-
ed and recurrent planning of the satellite observations and transmission
to a network of distributed X-Band ground-stations, (2) the systematic
acquisition and safeguarding of all spacecraft acquired data, and its pro-
cessing into higher level products ensuring quality and timeliness targets,
(3) the recurrent calibration of the instrument as triggered by the quality
control processes, (4) the automated product circulation across PDGS dis-
tributed archives to ensure the required availability and reliability of the
data toward users, and (5) the long-term archiving of all mission data
with embedded redundancy over the mission lifetime and beyond.
Vis-à-vis its users, the PDGS features a scalable data access and
distribution system to cope with the high data volumes and the
large anticipated user demands and user-services providing automat-
ed user-registration capabilities, on-line access to data-access tools,
user manuals, and up-to-date news on the mission main events and
performance.
 M. Drusch et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36
Fig. 5. The Multi Spectral Imager view (Astrium-SaS).
The PDGS is designed as a distributed ground-system including
mainly ground-stations, processing and archiving centers, and a
control center. While physically distributed in various sites, the
PDGS federates all remote archives offering a single virtual access
point for product discovery and download toward its users.
4. Image quality
The Sentinel-2 products will take advantage of the stringent radio-
metric and geometric image quality requirements. These requirements
constrain the stability of the platform and the instrument, the ground
Fig. 6. Sentinel-2 payload data segment architecture.
31
processing and the in orbit calibration. The spectral bands, their charac-
teristics and the required Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) for the reference
radiances (Lref) defined for the mission are shown in Table 3. The accu-
rate knowledge of the band equivalent wavelength is very important as
an error of 1 nm can induce a few percentages error on the reflectance,
especially in the blue (atmospheric scattering) and the red edge (vege-
tation) regions of the spectrum. Therefore, the equivalent wavelength is
required to be known with an uncertainty below 1 nm.
Getting a physical value (radiance or reflectance) from the numerical
output provided by the instrument requires the knowledge of the instru-
ment sensitivity. Any error on the absolute calibration measurement di-
rectly affects the accuracy of this physical value. For the absolute
calibration knowledge uncertainty a threshold value of 5% is required
with a goal of 3%. In the same way, the cross-band and multi-temporal
calibration knowledge accuracies were set to 3% and 1%, respectively.
Moreover, the nonlinearity of the instrument response will be known
with accuracy better than 1% and will have to be stable enough so that
the detector non uniformity can be calibrated at two radiance levels in
flight. The system MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) will be better
than 0.15 and lower than 0.3 at the Nyquist frequency for 10 m and
20 m bands and lower than 0.45 for 60 m bands.
The geometric image quality requirements are summarized in
Table 4. The accuracy of the image location, without ground control
points, is 20 m and should satisfy most of the applications. However,
we will see through the Level 1 processing description that most of
the Sentinel-2 images will benefit from Ground Control Points
(GCP) and satisfy 12.5 m maximum geo-location accuracy (including
the 10 m bands).
5. Level 1 products and processing
As the Sentinel-2 mission objectives emphasize the potential of data
time series, the basic Level 1 products must be geometrically registered
and radiometrically calibrated. This led to the following product defini-
tion: The Level 0 and Level 1A products provide raw compressed and
uncompressed data, respectively. The Level 1B data are radiometrically
32 M. Drusch et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36

Table 4 For the SWIR bands the detector module is made of three lines for
Geometric image quality requirements. B10 and four lines for B11 and B12. In order to make optimal use of
Geometric image quality performance Ground processing the pixels with the best SNR for the acquisition we select for each col-
hypothesis umn one pixel over three lines for B10 and two successive pixels over
A priori accuracy of image location: 2 km max (3σ) No processing four lines for B11 and B12 as these bands work in Time Delay Integra-
Accuracy of image location: 20 m (3σ) After image tion (TDI) mode. At ground level, a simple pixel re-arrangement along
processing without columns in the image is performed thanks to the Earth rotation com-
control points
pensation by the satellite yaw steering. For the Normalization a dark
Accuracy of image location: 12.5 m (3σ) After image
processing with signal and photo-response non uniformity correction is applied, includ-
control points ing a dynamic offset correction for each detector module thanks to blind
Multitemporal registration: After image pixels. Despite a very demanding cross-talk specification, the high radi-
3 m (2σ) for 10 m bands processing with ance dynamics specified for Sentinel-2 may induce defects that need to
6 m (2σ) for 20 m bands control points
be corrected. This phenomenon, mainly driven by electronics, will be
18 m (2σ) for 60 m bands
Multispectral registration for any couple of spectral bands: After image completely characterized and modeled before the launch. For defective
3 m (3σ) for 10 m bands processing with pixels (specified as less than 0.1% of the pixels) a correction may have to
6 m (3σ) for 20 m bands control points be applied. The image restoration combines de-convolution to correct
18 m (3σ) for 60 m bands
the instrument MTF (frequency-domain processing) and de-noising
based on a wavelet processing. When the de-noising is not necessary,
it is automatically deactivated through a noise level threshold. For the
corrected radiances. The physical geometric model is refined using avail- 60 m bands data are binned as the spatial resolution acquired across
able GCPs and appended to the product but not applied. The Level 1C the track is 20 m because of the pixel size.
product provides geo-coded top of atmosphere (TOA) reflectance with The goal of the geometric correction is to perform the temporal and
a sub-pixel multi-spectral and multi-date registration. A cloud and land/ spectral registration of all the images taken over any target. To reach
water mask is associated to the product. The cloud mask also provides this objective, the physical geometric model, which associates a viewing
an indication about the presence of cirrus clouds. These masks are direction to any pixel, has to be refined. This geometric physical model
based on threshold tests using the spectral information obtained from combines position, attitude and datation information, transformation
MSI. The ground sampling distance of the Level 1C product is 10 m, matrices between different reference frames: satellite, instrument,
20 m or 60 m depending on the band (Fig. 1). The L1C unitary product focal planes and detectors, and for each elementary detector of each
is a tile of 100×100 km2. Users will get as many tiles as it will be neces- band a viewing direction. An automatic correlation processing between
sary to cover their requested area. Sentinel-2 products will follow Quality a reference band of the image to be refined and a reference image pro-
Assurance for Earth Observation (QA4EO) recommendations made by the viding GCPs allows the on line calibration (i.e. when processing the
Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) [CEOS, 2010]. Perfor- Level 1C product) of the viewing model and the correction for attitude
mance traceability and radiometric and geometric quality indices will or position variations. This refined geometrical model is then propagat-
be provided with the ancillary product data. A schematic overview of ed to all the bands and used to project them on a cartographic reference
the Level 1 processing is shown in Fig. 7. frame.

Level-0 Level-0
Level-1A Level-1B Level-1C
Consolidated

TELEMETRY ANALYSIS DECOMPESSION RESAMPLING

RADIOMETRIC
-Geometry interpolation
CORRECTIONS
grid computation,
-Resampling (B-splines).
-Inv. on-board equalization,
-Dark signal correction,
-Blind pixels removal,
-Cross-talk correction,
PRELIMINARY QUICK- -Relative response correction,
SWIR PIXELS
LOOK AND CLOUD -Defective/no-data correction,
REARRANGEMENT
MASK GENERATION -Deconvolution/Denoising, CONVERSION TO
-Binning of 60m bands. REFLECTANCES

PREVIEW IMAGE AND

MASKS GENERATION
GEOMETRIC VIEWING (defective pixels, cloud &
MODEL REFINEMENT land/water)

-Refining of the viewing model

using a global set of reference
images,
-Registration between VNIR
and SWIR focal planes
(optional).

Fig. 7. Level 1 processing chart (CNES).

 M. Drusch et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36
The reference image belongs to a worldwide geo-referenced data base
made of Sentinel-2 mono-spectral images. It will be gradually built from
cloud free scenes. The geo-referencing of all the images is performed
through a global space-triangulation process using tie points between
the different images and GCPs. Because of the parallax between odd and
even detector modules and between bands, the registration is sensitive
to the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) used for the processing. A SRTM
(Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Farr et al., 2007) class DEM is neces-
sary to reach the required performances. It is planned to use the SRTM
DEM complemented at higher and lower latitudes using complementary
DEMs, for example the Canada National DEM, the Greenland Geoscience
Laser Altimeter System (GLAS, DiMarzio et al., 2007) DEM, National Ele-
vation Dataset (NED, Gesch et al., 2009), and corrected in the specific
areas where SRTM presents artifacts (e.g. over the Himalayas).
For the re-sampling two steps are combined: (1) a geometric pro-
cess computes the grid that gives for each point of the output image
its location in the focal plane and (2) a radiometric process computes
for each point of the grid its radiometry using Splines interpolation
functions. The inversion of the radiometric model provides the TOA
reflectance taking into account the camera sensitivity. Finally cloud
(opaque/cirrus) and land/water masks are computed based on spec-
tral criteria.
6. Cloud screening and atmospheric corrections
The PDGS will offer additional data-processing options, through a
software toolbox on user side, to derive Bottom-Of-Atmosphere (BOA)
reflectance (Level 2A) and enhanced cloud masks from the TOA reflec-
tance (Level-1C). The Sentinel-2 atmospheric correction is being devel-
oped based on algorithms proposed in the Atmospheric/Topographic
Correction for Satellite Imagery (ATCOR, Richter & Schlaepfer, 2011).
The method performs atmospheric correction based on the libRadtran ra-
diative transfer model (Mayer & Kylling, 2005). This model is run to gen-
erate a large look-up table (LUT) accounting for a wide variety of
atmospheric conditions, solar geometries and ground elevations. This
LUT is used as simplified model (running faster than the full model) to
Fig. 8. Simulated Sentinel-2 scene containing cirrus clouds. True color coding: R/G/B = bands 4/3/1 (665, 560, 443 nm). Left: original scene, center: cirrus band (1.375 μm), right:
after cirrus and atmospheric correction. Credits: DLR for data simulation and NASA/JPL for AVIRIS data supply.
33
invert the radiative transfer equation, and to calculate bottom-of-
atmosphere reflectance. All gaseous and aerosol properties of the atmo-
sphere are either derived by the algorithm itself or fixed to an a priori
value. Aerosol optical thickness and water vapor content are derived
from the images itself.
The algorithm additionally generates an enhanced cloud-mask
and scene classification compared to the one generated through the
Level 1C processing. Fig. 8 provides an example of simulated Sentinel-2
data before and after atmospheric corrections.
7. Operational applications
Observations from the Sentinel-2 mission will be used by three GMES
main service elements, namely Geoland2, SAFER and G-MOSAIC. The mis-
sion has been designed to fulfill their user requirements for a number of
operational applications, which are summarized in this section. For poten-
tial scientific applications the reader is referred to Berger et al. (2012-this
issue).
The pre-operational land service of GMES is currently provided
through Geoland2 (www.gmes-geoland.info/home.html). The project
aims at providing geo-information data on the regional, European and
global scale and covers a wide range of thematic domains organized
in three Core Mapping Services and seven Core Information Services.
The European Land Monitoring Service (EUROLAND) addresses the
local (Urban Atlas) and the continental component (high spatial resolu-
tion land cover parameters and land cover change) of the Land Monitor-
ing Core Service (LMCS). The objective of the Biogeophysical Parameter
Service (BioPar) is to set up pre-operational infrastructures for provid-
ing an extensive range of parameters characterizing the continental
vegetation, the energy budget and the water cycle. The Seasonal and
Annual Change Monitoring Service (SATChMo) aims at closing the gap
between low-resolution global coverage and the high-resolution by
providing seasonal to annual European-wide coverage of physical prop-
erties describing bio-geophysical information parameters, such as land
cover (LC) and land cover change (LCC). Products will be delivered in
the format of indicators, maps and statistics. SATChMo will deliver
products less frequently yet with more spatial detail than BioPar while
34 M. Drusch et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36

providing products more frequently but with less spatial and thematic
detail than EUROLAND. The seven Core Information Services are: Spatial
Planning, AgriEnvironmental Monitoring, Water Monitoring, Forest
Monitoring, Land Carbon, Natural Resource Monitoring in Africa and
Global Crop Monitoring.
SAFER addresses potentially all types of disasters or crises: natural
disasters (floods, fires, landslides, storms, earthquakes, etc.), technolog-
ical accidents, humanitarian crises (for instance after a severe drought
period), civilian–military crises. In the domain of emergency manage-
ment, numerous projects paving the way toward a pre-operational
GMES service have been funded by European institutions over the last
years. These include projects such as Respond and RISK-EOS. Started
in 2003, RISK-EOS (www.riskeos.com) aims at delivering operational
geo-information services to support the management of meteorological
hazards such as floods and forest fires and to a minor extent of other
natural hazards throughout all phases of the disaster reduction (pre-
vention, early warning, crisis, post crisis). The RISK-EOS services com-
bine the use of satellite observation data (some provided in near real
time, NRT) with exogenous data and modeling techniques. They are tar-
geted to serve the needs of all risk management actors at European, Na-
tional and Regional levels (Civil protections, fire fighting and rescue
services, Land planning and risks prevention services, Territorial
communities).
Another objective related to crisis is to increase the efficiency and ef-
fectiveness of the European and international humanitarian community
through the appropriate and reliable application of geographic informa-
tion. The main target users of GSE RESPOND are the EC (DG ECHO, DG
RELEX, DG ENV/MIC), the United Nations (UN) (for instance the UN Of-
fice for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)), the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN Department of Peace Keeping
Operations (UNDPKO), the Red Cross and Non-Governmental Organiza-
tions (NGOs). The service will provide information for preparedness ac-
tivities (pro-active) and for relief activities (reactive). It supports both
slow and fast onset crises (e.g. Famine — Slow, and Earthquake —
Fast) and geographic information has been proven useful to organiza-
tion working in this arena for a large variety of applications from ensur-
ing the rapid deployment of relief following a disaster to planning
reconstruction and development activities during long term recovery.
The pre-operational security service of GMES is currently provided
through the FP7 project G-MOSAIC (www.gmes-gmosaic.eu) and the
FP6 project LIMES (www.fp6-limes.eu). These two projects, which
combine Earth observation technologies with communication and posi-
tioning technologies, address the following domains: maritime surveil-
lance (e.g. sea border surveillance in and outside Europe, illegal
immigration and illegal trafficking surveillance, safety sea lane/piracy/
sensitive cargo), infrastructure surveillance (e.g. land border surveil-
lance, critical infrastructure), support to peace-keeping, support to
intelligence and early warning, and support to crisis management
operations.
Before G-MOSAIC and LIMES, several projects dealing with different
aspects of security have been funded by European institutions, such as
Global Monitoring for Food Security (GMFS). The GMFS services are tai-
lored to meet the information requirements of specific core users and
currently include two applications: (1) Continental scale monitoring,
aiming at continuous monitoring of vegetation state by analyzing
long-term Earth observation time-series (usually on a 10 days basis)
and (2) national monitoring, mainly aiming at supplying detailed infor-
mation for major food crops, such as the planting date and the national
extent of cultivation. These products are delivered once or twice per
growing season. Additional important parts of the service are the in-
situ data collection, including field data used for validation purposes
and as input for agro-meteorological modeling.
The baseline for the geophysical parameters is the BOA reflectance
Level 2A product. Potential Level 2B products comprise generic land
cover (e.g. Vogelman et al., 2001), fraction of absorbed photosyntheti-
cally active radiation (e.g. Yuhong et al., 2000), leaf area index (e.g.
Chen & Cihlar, 1996), fraction of vegetation cover (e.g. Zeng et al.,
2000), leaf chlorophyll (e.g. Broge & Leblanc, 2001) and vegetation
water content (e.g. Jackson et al., 2004). A full list of potential future
Level 2 products is provided in Table 5.
8. Calibration and validation
Calibration and validation (Cal/Val) corresponds to the process of
updating and validating on-board and on-ground configuration param-
eters and algorithms to ensure that the product data quality require-
ments are met. To meet the baseline product quality requirements, a
well-defined Cal/Val plan will be systematically applied. Cal/Val activi-
ties will be carried out in coordination and cooperation with other
CEOS (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites) partners and in line
with its quality assurance guidelines endorsed by CEOS and the
QA4EO framework. In complement, product-quality will be ensured
through well-defined Quality Control procedures.
Dark Signal Assessment will be performed through acquisition of
images over oceans during night time. This will allow determining the
radiometric calibration parameters for removing the offset due to dark
current. This operation will be automatic and data-driven based on
the reception of the Dark-Signal Calibration data which will be com-
manded every two weeks. Such acquisitions will be optimized such as
to cover areas without lucent plankton (e.g. South Pacific CEOS test
site) and to avoid full moon conditions.
Detector relative sensitivities will be determined through the use of
on-board sun diffuser images acquired by the instrument and used to
derive radiometric equalization parameters for inter-pixel calibration

Table 5
Potential future Levels 2 and 3 data products.

Name Description Goal accuracy Product level

Bottom-of-atmosphere reflectance Atmospherically-corrected product including cloud screening, and adjacency/slope effects correction. 5% 2A
Generic land cover Land cover with a set of basic generic classes compatible with those already used for generic TBD 2B
services such as GLC 2000 and CORINE.
Fraction of absorbed Fraction of the radiation in the photosynthetic domain (400–700 nm) that is absorbed by leafs. RMS = 0.05 2B
photosynthetically active Values range between 0 and 1. Product to provide continuity of MGVI [RD-34]. For Sentinel-2 this S/N = 21
radiation index would provide MGVI at high resolution.
Leaf area index Map with the green leaf area per unit soil area. 10% 2B
Fraction of vegetation cover % of the land surface covered by vegetation. TBD 2B
Leaf The amount of chlorophyll per square centimeter. This product would provide continuity of MTCI [RD-31]. TBD 2B
chlorophyll content For Sentinel-2 this index would provide MTCI at high resolution. This index is directly related to the
chlorophyll content of vegetation.
Leaf water content The amount of water in weight (grams) or volume (cubic centimeters) per unit leaf weight (grams) or TBD 2B
volume (cubic centimeters). This parameter can be remotely sensed and is important in estimating the
potential of transpiration and the vegetation energy balances.
Spatio-temporal syntheses of N/A N/A 3
Level 1C or 2A products.
 M. Drusch et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 25–36
(on-board and on-ground). This operation will be data-driven on recep-
tion of absolute calibration data with the Calibration and Shutter Mech-
anism (CSM) in sun-diffuser position that will be commanded every
four weeks. In addition, images will be acquired over uniform ground
areas (e.g. Greenland, Dome-C). In principle this calibration operation
will be triggered only during Phase-E1 (commissioning phase) for on-
board diffuser validation, and on contingency during Phase E2 (opera-
tional phase). It will not be automated and only be carried out when
required by an expert Cal/Val team after appropriate commanding of
specific image acquisitions in nominal mode.
Absolute radiometric calibration parameters will be determined
through the following operations: (1) Calibration using on-board sun dif-
fuser images. This operation will be data-driven (on reception of absolute
calibration data) on a 4-week basis reusing the pre-defined planning out-
lined for the detector relative sensitivities determination. (2) Vicarious
calibration and validation based on image acquisitions over specific
areas such as snow sites (e.g. Dome-C in Antarctica), instrumented
Cal/Val sites from the CEOS network (e.g. Tuz Gölü in Turkey or La
Crau in France), and desert sites for cross calibration with other sensors
and monitoring of temporal stability (e.g. Libyan desert). (3) Inter-band
calibration through the processing of sun-glint measurements. During
operations, this will only be done to consolidate and monitor the cali-
bration performed during commissioning phase. (4) Refocusing of the
instrument by varying the M3 mirror temperature. During Phase E2,
this calibration would only be performed in case of contingency.
During operations, the geometric calibration will mainly be per-
formed through updates of the Global Reference Images (GRI) used
to meet multi-temporal registration requirements. Calibration will
be complemented with a set of activities that will be triggered in
case of contingency, and a validation plan to check that the user re-
quirements are being met. Contingency geometric calibration will in-
cludes the correction between reference frames (steered/camera)
and correction between detectors reference frames. This later will
be done only during commissioning phase and only in contingency
case during operations.
The validation of the geometric performances will be performed
on a yearly basis and will include geolocation accuracy assessment
using reference sites with geometric patterns and for which geometry
is mastered, multi-temporal registration assessment using image cor-
relation techniques, and multi-spectral registration assessment using
correlation between images of different bands.
For atmospheric correction and cloud screening algorithms, the
calibration of the algorithms and the validation of the obtained products
(BOA reflectance, aerosol optical thickness and water vapor content)
will be performed using a set of test sites representative of main
surface-atmosphere types. For a quantitative validation, these sites
will include the LANDNET sites which are a set of Land Equipped Sites
(LES) endorsed by CEOS as standard reference sites for the calibration
of space-based optical imaging sensors. In addition, ad-hoc validation
campaigns will be organized involving airborne, balloon and ground
measurements. Further information on the mentioned test sites and
the CEOS cal/val activities can be found at the Cal/Val Portal (http://
calvalportal.ceos.org/).
9. Campaigns
Since one of the most important aspects of developing an Earth-
observation mission is to ensure that the eventual data meets the
users' exacting requirements, efforts are put into pre-flight campaigns
to evaluate the future performance of a mission. In order to meet this
objective, airborne and ground measurements have to be acquired so
that the final data products can be simulated and evaluated. In order
to support the development of the Sentinel-2 mission the CarboEurope,
FLEX and Sentinel-2 campaign (CEFLES2) was organized by ESA in 2007
(ESA, 2009).
35
The objective of this campaign was to collect quality and coordi-
nated airborne optical and in-situ measurements. Hundreds of kilo-
meters of airborne imagery over many types of landscapes have
been acquired along with a complete set of ground measurements
taken by a consortium of European institutes. Consequently, CEFLES2
allowed exploiting the synergies between a large collection of air-
borne and ground measurements performed in coordination with
CERES (CarboEurope Regional Experiment Strategy). The CEFLES2
main campaign site is located within the CERES experimental area
in Gascony, south-west France, with additional airborne acquisitions
taken over Madrid and the Mediterranean coast. The first measurements
were acquired in April and June 2007 and another set was taken in Sep-
tember 2007, so that different stages of crop growth are represented.
The aim was to obtain reference datasets (including simulated Sentinel-
2 imagery) to address the specific needs of the development activities
for Sentinel-2. This campaign generated a unique dataset that has contrib-
uted to the specification of the mission (e.g. for the determination of the
optimum compression ratios per spectral band) and to the definition of
Levels 1 and 2 processing algorithms. Details on the results can be
found for example in Rascher et al., 2009 and Guanter et al., 2009.
10. Summary
Sentinel-2 has been designed to support GMES Land, Emergency
and Security applications, namely Geoland2, SAFER, and G-MOSAIC.
The mission will provide enhanced continuity to the SPOT 4/5 mis-
sions and will complement the Landsat series multi-spectral obser-
vations. The unique key features are the revisit time of five days, a
relatively wide swath width of 290 km, the 13 spectral bands pro-
viding high radiometric and geometric image quality and its global
coverage — contributing to the fulfillment of GMES needs in terms
of delivery of operational land and emergency services.
Following the successful completion of the MSI and system Prelimi-
nary Design Review in autumn 2008, the MSI and satellite are currently
in phase C/D, which comprise all activities to be performed in order to
develop and qualify the space and ground segments and their products.
Manufacturing, integration and test of the first equipment has already
been delivered, such as engineering models of MSI detectors and elec-
tronics and flight models of the mirrors. The satellite CDR was held in
2011 and the launch of the first satellite is foreseen in 2013, and the
launch of the second satellite about 2 years later.
Acknowledgment
The authors acknowledge the contributions from the ESA S2 Project
Team and the industrial teams from Astrium.
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