PROBA-V ready for operations
May 6, 2013 at 11 PM (local time) PROBA-V, the ESA micro-satellite designed to permanently monitor the status of the vegetation worldwide, was launched successfully from ESA’s launch base in French Guiana (Kourou). The satellite is funded and developed under ESA’s General Support Technology Programme (GSTP), with a major contribution from Belgium.
Today, we are proud to announce that PROBA-V is ready for operations.
During an intensive 6 month commissioning phase the Space Segment, Ground Segment and Processing Facility have been fully validated and calibrated. As a result, the data products are ready for distribution.
PROBA-V (Project for On-Board Autonomy - VEGETATION), the ESA micro-satellite and successor of SPOT-VEGETATION is not bigger than a washing machine, but will daily monitor the status of the global vegetation with a spatial resolution of 1/3 km.
QinetiQ Space NV was the prime contractor, OIP developed the instrument which is composed of a combination of three small TMA telescopes, while VITO, the Principal Investigator, developed and will also operate the user segment (i.e., the processing chain and image quality centre).
Since the successful launch of PROBA-V, the satellite has passed the commissioning phase flawlessly. Shortly after the launch the satellite made contact with the ground control stations allowing to activate the Vegetation instrument. Only a few days later, a first glimpse of the Earth was caught by the new instrument (PROBA-V opens its eyes).
After the launch, all satellite systems had to be activated and evaluated within 6 months.
On ground, the processing facility had to move to operations. During this period the necessary radiometric and geometric calibration was also executed.
Today ESA, the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO) and the Belgian industrial consortium proudly announce that the crucial commissioning phase has come to an end and that the satellite is ready for operations. The operational phase is funded by BELSPO with a contribution from Luxemburg, and will be managed through ESA’s Earthwatch Programme alongside a National mission exploitation.
In the frame of this mission a professional and user-friendly distribution portal was developed and will be operated by VITO at www.vito-eodata.be. Via this platform, users can access and download images quickly and easily.
These images are of crucial importance for studies on vegetation status evolving over time, on climate change and global change in general.
The new distribution portal will replace the previous VEGETATION portal that has been used for several years to distribute the SPOT-VEGETATION products. As of today these SPOT-VEGETATION products will also be available on www.vito-eodata.be .
Besides PROBA-V and SPOT-VEGETATION data the portal will enable access to the 10-daily syntheses of METOP-AVHRR and Envisat-Meris.
For more information about the mission, products and data policy we kindly refer to the PROBA-V website (http://proba-v.vgt.vito.be , http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology/Proba_Missions or the new distribution portal www.vito-eodata.be).
Until December 12, 2013 the access to the near-real time L1C and 333m synthesis products will be free.
Kind Regards,
ESA, BELSPO & VITO