Announcement of opportunity - call for Cal/Val activities for Sentinel-4 and -5

Copernicus is the Earth observation programme of the European Union. The Copernicus missions Sentinel-4 (S4) and Sentinel-5 (S5) are designed to provide long-term operational atmospheric composition observations required by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

This AO Call focuses on the early mission phase between launch and the public release of the mission products. The deadline initially set to end of September 2024 has been extended: Proposals should be submitted by Monday 14 October 2024 (COB).

Objectives

The purpose of this AO Call is to form a joint S4 and S5 Validation Team (S45VT), to trigger and coordinate calibration and validation activities (hereafter referred to as ‘AO Activities’) for the S4 and S5 operational mission products, and to support requests for funding by acceptance letters issued by the Agencies.

The primary objectives of the activities triggered by the AO Call are to

1. assess and establish the initial post-launch data quality of the mission products. This covers the following:
   1. validation of quantity values and uncertainties;
   2. estimation of bias, dispersion, and stability;
   3. quantification of the information content of the observation;
   4. analyses of the dependence of values and uncertainties on influence quantities;
   5. identification of persistent features;
   6. verification of flags.
2. support the consolidation of the processors by identifying and fixing bugs in algorithms and processor implementations, and by identifying and handling potential unexpected post-launch instrument features.
3. verify that the mission products meet the applicable data quality requirements as specified in the Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5 Calibration and Validation Requirements Document and can be released to the users.

Eligibility to apply

Any team with relevant expertise is eligible to apply.

Application process

An organisation or consortium represented by a Principal Investigator from the leading organisation needs to submit a proposal along with a detailed description of the activity to the EUMETSAT Secretariat via the AO Call form.

Timeline of the application process

The AO Call is released about one year before the expected launch date of the first satellites: either MTG-S1 with the S4/UVN Proto-Flight Model on board, or Metop-SG A1 with the S5/UVNS PFM on board.

The proposal period runs until 14 October 2024.

Further information and contact

Further information on the Announcement of Opportunity Call, along with the relevant references, can be found in the AO Document and in associated documents.

For further information on this call contact EUMETSAT User Service Helpdesk.