VENµS mission: Results and perspectives for a new optical 1-day revisit mission

Jean Louis Raynaud, Arthur Dick, Amandine Rolland, Julien Michel, Agathe Moreau, Olivier Hagolle, Gerard Dedieu, Arnon Karnieli, Renaud Binet, Sophie Pelou, Manuel Salvoldi

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

Vegetation and Environment New Micro Satellite(VENµS) is an ISRAELI-FRENCH Earth observation satellite that provides optical time series, from Level-1 up to Level-3 products (bi-monthly syntheses of surface reflectances), over a selection of 186 specific sites worldwide. Launched on August 2nd, 2017, on a polar sun-synchronous orbit, this mission provides a unique combination of high spatial, spectral, and especially revisit frequency characteristics with 12 spectral bands imagery. After three years of 2-day revisit scientific mission on Earth resources monitoring, thanks to the good health of the mission, CNES and ISA decided to extend the mission to take benefit of this satellite and explore a new unique feature in Earth observation: a 1-day revisit period associated with a 4-m spatial resolution. This phase, named VENµS Mission 5(VM5), began in March 2022 and should last two years. After a brief description of the VENµS specifications, this paper overviews this new mission phase in VENµS life. It describes how the ground and board segments have been adapted to manage these new temporal revisit specificities. The selected sites are also introduced concerning the acquisitions, and the first results concerning radiometric and geometric performances are presented. Moreover, considering these new characteristics, VENµS role as a demonstrator in preparing new missions is emphasized. Indeed, this new 1-day revisit orbit at 560 km provides data that may simulate future high revisit and high-resolution sensors, such as the next generations of Sentinel-2 or Landsat. It also allows to accurately benchmark spatio-temporal fusion methods dedicated to merge Sentinel-2 and future metric resolution and lower revisit period missions, such as the Sentinel-HR mission currently studied by CNES. By merging Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-HR data, it will be possible to get a high resolution and high revisit time series.

Original languageEnglish
JournalProceedings of the International Astronautical Congress, IAC
Volume2022-September
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2022
Event73rd International Astronautical Congress, IAC 2022 - Paris, France
Duration: 18 Sep 202222 Sep 2022

Keywords

  • Earth observation
  • VENµS
  • fusion
  • revisit
  • vegetation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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