This is the first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring the atmosphere. The information gathered by the Sentinel-5P will be used through the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service to forecast the quality of the air and for decision-making processes.
The Sentinel-5P will join another five ESA Sentinels put into orbit since 2014.
Since 2013, Telespazio, along with its subsidiary Telespazio VEGA Deutschland, has played its part in preparing the Sentinel-5P mission as part of the contract awarded to it by the ESOC (ESA’s European Space Operations Centre). Telespazio VEGA Deutschland provided a vast array of services: from operations and engineering, to flight dynamics and ICT (network engineering, IT coordination and data systems).
Telespazio is one of the leading industrial partners in Copernicus, a programme coordinated and run by the European Commission, in order to provide Europe with its own Earth observation capacity. The Company has been and continues to be involved in the creation, maintenance, and evolution of the Payload Data Ground Segments (PDGS) for Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-3, the Mission Control Systems for Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-5P and the infrastructure for access to the Earth observation products the Copernicus missions (Copernicus Space Component Data Access – Coordinated Data Access System – CSCDA/CDS).
Within the Copernicus Operations sector, Telespazio’s staff supports to the ESOC during pre- and post-launch phases for the Sentinel satellites, and is responsible for CSCDA/CDS operations, as well as for acquiring data from the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions, from the e-GEOS Space Centre in Matera. In addition, as the main contractor, it will be responsible for managing the end-to-end service for the operations until 2021, and for maintenance and evolution of the entire earth segment of the Sentinel-3 mission. Moreover, it supports AIRBUS in its operational activities for the entire earth segment of the Sentinel-1 mission.
In the Copernicus Services sector, Telespazio engages in the activities related to the management of emergencies, land and maritime safety, management of ground resources, and the monitoring climate changes. In fact, the Matera Space Centre is one of three Core Ground Segment stations for the Copernicus programme, and receives radar and optical data acquired by the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions.
Finally, Telespazio provides earth observation data obtained from the COSMO-SkyMed and IRS missions to the Copernicus programme.