Skytek
Extending the use for ESA’s Sentinel satellite data
The ESA Validation Data Centre (EVDC) serves as a central, long-term repository in Europe for archiving and exchange of correlative data for validation of atmospheric composition products from satellite platforms. The objective of the EVDC is to provide an online information system that supports users in managing and exploiting campaign datasets for Earth Observation missions and applications.
The ESA atmospheric Validation Data Centre (EVDC) requires a resilient data storage architecture, with the capability of handling site failure and with offline backup.
The proposal is to extend the infrastructure at ICHEC to process and publish Earth Observation and climate data. This then will be extended with additional object storage and backup tapes. The infrastructure required to build the proposed platform is fundamentally composed of large capacity (multi-petabyte) data storage systems with front-end server capability for processing and providing the end-user services driving the requirement. The architecture must be fault tolerant and multi-site in order to achieve the required level of service availability and data integrity. It must also enable multiple distinct data archive projects and their derived data sets to co-exist independently with full isolation from each other. Each data set will potentially have different performance and data integrity requirements.
The project role will include the creation of a Virtual Host to be installed with EVDC software, based on the POSIX fuse stack (or other as required) on Linux. Installation of this system will be undertaken with code based from Skytek with engineers from ICHEC and Skytek, in conjunction with NILU. An initial VM will be installed with access via Skytek, NILU and ICHEC staff. Concurrently the primary storage layer will be installed and setup by ICHEC.
New feature in EVDC: Orbit Predictor and Overpass Tool developed by Skytek
The OPOT is a new tool that allows users to specify an area of the Earth's surface and a time window, select a list of satellites, and apply a query to verify if and when the satellite will perform observations in this region, matching, for example, specific ground based measurement observations.
The OPOT takes input for satellite’s orbit in the form of TLEs (Two-Line Element set) and exploits the Simplified General Perturbation Model (SGP4)[8] to predict and store the future orbits.
An overpass occurs when the field of view of a satellite’s instrument passes over an area of interest (AOI). Users can search for overpasses by satellite or instrument, as well as for joint overpasses between two satellites. They can then download the data for further analysis or upload previous queries. The tool also allows the planning of campaigns for future missions, by simulating the TLEs for satellites not yet launched.
The OPOT interface allows the user to specify query parameters such as satellites, instruments, date and time, while the 3D globe viewer can be used to specify the location (single point or a polygonal AOI) and to display the resulting overpasses
