MPC activities and team

The SAR Mission Performance Cluster (SAR-MPC) is a consortium led by CLS and in charge of the End-To-End instrument and product performances for the Sentinel-1 SAR mission. This includes the operation of the service with daily quality control of the products, the calibration and validation of the products and the maintenance of the Level 2 part of the SAR  processor (the maintenance of the Level 1 part of the SARprocessor is performed in a separated contract with ESA).

The activity share within the consortium is the following:

  • CLS : lead of the consortium, service management, operation of the routine quality controls, overall technical coordination, Expert Support Laboratory on SAR wind measurement, maintenance of the Level 2 part of the SAR processor
  • DLR: Expert Support Laboratory responsible of radiometric calibration and geometric calibration
  • ARESYS: Expert Support Laboratory on the SAR Instrument and L1 SAR processing, support to geometric calibration
  • IFREMER: Expert Support Laboratory on ocean applications, in charge of calibration and validation of the Wave mode
  • NORCE: Expert Support Laboratory on SAR swell measurement
  • Ocean Data Lab: Expert Support Laboratory on SAR Radial Velocity (RVL) measurement
  • S[&]T: maintenance and development of the routine QC tools and Expert Collaborative Environment

 

The SAR-MPC consortium is in charge of preparation of the S-1 IPF Auxiliary Data Files (ADF) implementing the most up to data characterisation of the instrument and calibration of the processing. The set of ADF operated since Sentinel-1 mission start is available here. An history of the SAR processor updates is maintained as well here.

The SAR-MPC consortium issues a set of reports on instrument and product performance. This includes Annual Performance Reports on the mission performance, and ad hoc reports on specific anomalies or advice on how to efficiently use the Sentinel-1 products. A list of the most relevant technical reports is presented in this web site here, while the complete set of reports is made available on the SAR Document Library

The SAR-MPC consortium contributes to information toward the Sentinel-1 product end-users on topics related to product performance through publication of scientific papers, presentation in scientific and technical workshop, and the diffusion of reports in this web site.