S3MPC - Sentinel-3 Altimetry Mission Performance Cluster

Project Goals

In the Copernicus Ground Segment, the Sentinel-3 Mission Performance Cluster for Surface Topography Mission (S3MPC-STM) has the responsibility for

  1. ensuring that the radar altimeter (SRAL) and microwave radiomenter (MWR) sensors are performing nominally. Any anomalies are to be detected and the impact on data performance is to be analyzed
  2. ensuring that the Copernicus user level data are in line with their specification in terms of characteristics, performance, and accuracy
  3. improving Sentinel-3 data products to deliver state-of-the-art information to users. 

These activities are performed for Sentinel-3 measurenemts over sea ice, land ice and inland water surfaces withon a consortium of European partners:

  • Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS), France
  • isardSAT, Spain
  • Dannish Technical University (DTU), Denmark
  • Space Geomatica, Greece
  • Radio Analog Micro Electronics (RAME), Italy
  • LEGOS (Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales), France
  • Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Germany
  • Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France
  • Thalès Alenia Space (TAS), France

Role & Motivation of AWI

AWI role in S3MPC is to advice on the data performance and algorithm evolutions of Sentinel-3 sea ice products. Radar altimeter data from the Sentinel-3 constellation plays an important role of monitoring sea ice thickness in the Arctic and Antarctic. The Sentinel-3 program ensures a long-term availability of data with a complementary data coverage to CryoSat-2 reference information.