An evolution in the Copernicus Space Component (CSC) is foreseen in the second half of the 2020s to meet priority user needs not addressed by the existing infrastructure, and/or to reinforce services by monitoring capability in the thematic domains of CO2, polar, and agriculture/forestry. This evolution will be synergetic with the enhanced continuity of services for the next generation of CSC. Growing expectations about the use of Earth Observation data to support policy-making and monitoring puts increasing pressure on technology to deliver proven and reliable information. Hyperspectral imaging (also known as imaging spectroscopy) today enables the observation and monitoring of surface properties (geo-biophysical and geo-biochemical variables) due to the diagnostic capability of spectroscopy provided through contiguous, gapless spectral measurements from the visible to the shortwave infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Hyperspectral imaging is a powerful remote sensing technology based on high spectral resolution measurements of light interacting with matter, thus allowing the characterisation and quantification of Earth surface materials. Quantitative variables derived from the observed spectra are diagnostic for a range of new and improved Copernicus services with a focus on the management of natural resources. Thanks to well-established spectroscopic techniques, optical hyperspectral remote sensing has the potential to deliver significant enhancement in quantitative value-added products. This will support the generation of a wide variety of new products and services in the domain of agriculture, food security, raw materials, soils, biodiversity, environmental degradation and hazards, inland and coastal waters, and forestry. These are relevant to various EU policies that are currently not being met or can be substantially improved, but also to the private downstream sector. The Main Mission Objective of the Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission is: “To provide routine hyperspectral observations through the Copernicus Programme in support of EU- and related policies for the management of natural resources, assets and benefits. This unique visible-to-shortwave infrared spectroscopy based observational capability will in particular support new and enhanced services for food security, agriculture and raw materials. This includes sustainable agricultural and biodiversity management, soil properties characterization, sustainable mining practices and environment preservation.”

The observational requirements of CHIME are driven by the primary application domains i.e. agriculture, soils, food security and raw materials, and are based on state-of-the art technology and results of previous hyperspectral airborne and experimental spaceborne systems. They were drafted by an international group of experts and reflected in the Mission Requirements Document. These baseline observational requirements consider trade-offs and dependencies between parameters such as spectral resolution and radiometric performance.

For the development of the Space Segment Contract (Phase B2/C/D/E1) Thales Alenia Space (France) as Satellite Prime and OHB (Germany) as Instrument Prime were selected. The contract was signed in November 2020 and the corresponding Kick-Off released the start of Phase B2. The System Requirements Review (SRR) was conducted in July 2021 and the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) is planned for mid- 2022. The CHIME Space Segment will be confirmed by the end of the current phase B2. Currently there are 2 satellites foreseen and each of the satellites will embark a hyperspectral instrument, with a single telescope, and three single-channel spectrometers covering each one-third of the total swath of ~130 km. Each spectrometer has then a single detector covering the entire spectral range from 400 to 2500 nm. CHIME will embark a HyperSpectral Instrument (HSI) which is a pushbroom-type grating Imaging Spectrometer with high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), high radiometric accuracy and data uniformity. The generated Hyperspectral Data are already pre-processed onboard the satellite within the dedicated Data Processing Unit (DPU) allowing cloud detection and compression using artificial intelligence techniques. Once the data are transmitted via Ka-Band antenna to the ground, the Data will be processed and disseminated through the Copernicus core Ground Segment (GS) allowing the generation of CHIME core products: L2A (bottom-of-atmosphere surface reflectance in cartographic geometry), L1C (top-of-atmosphere reflectance in cartographic geometry) and L1B (top-of-atmosphere radiance in sensor geometry).

In this contribution, the main outcomes of the activities carried out in Phase A/B1 and B2, as well as the planned activities for Phase C/D/E will be presented, covering the scientific support studies, the technical developments and the user community preparatory activities. The ongoing international collaboration towards increasing synergies of current and future imaging spectroscopy missions in space will be reported as well.

The Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) expansion mission is designed to provide measurement evidence in support of developing, implementing, and monitoring the impact of the European Integrated Policy for the Arctic. Since the impact of changes in the Polar regions have profound impacts globally, CIMR will provide measurements over the global domain serving users in the Copernicus Ocean, Land, Climate and other Service application domains. The User needs for the CIMR mission are set out in reports from European Commission Polar Expert Group (PEG) user consultation processes, which are supplemented by a document expressing CMEMS recommendations and Copernicus Climate Service User requirements.

The aim of a Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometry (CIMR) Mission is to Provide high-spatial resolution microwave imaging radiometry measurements and derived products with global coverage and sub-daily revisit in the polar regions and adjacent seas to address Copernicus user needs. The primary instrument is a conically scanning low-frequency, high spatial resolution multi-channel microwave radiometer. A dawn-dusk orbit has been selected to fly in coordination with MetOp-SG-B1 allowing collocated data from both missions to be obtained in the Polar regions within +/-10 minutes. A conical scanning approach utilising a large 8m diameter deployable mesh reflector with an incidence angle of 55 degrees results in a large swath width of ~2000 km. This approach ensures 95% global coverage each day with a single satellite and no hole at the pole in terms of coverage. Channels centred at L-, C-, X-, Ku- and Ka-band are dual polarised with effective spatial resolution of "≤ 60" km, "≤ 15" km, "≤ 15" km and "< 5" km (both Ka- and Ku-band with a goal of 4 km) respectively. Multiple feeds are used for all but L-band to ensure a slow antenna rotation speed while providing complete coverage of the scanned surface. Projected footprint ellipse on-ground are overlapped and each channel provides 5 samples that are set to ground for each measurement integration time. Measurements are obtained using both a forward scan and a backward scan arc. In-flight calibration is implemented using active cold loads and a hot load complemented by periodic pitch manoeuvres for both deep-space and to the earth surface. On board processing is implemented to provide robustness against radio frequency interference and enables the computation of modified 3rd and 4th Stokes parameters for all channels.

This solution enables a large number of Level-2 geophysical products to be derived over all earth surfaces including sea ice (concentration, thickness, drift, ice type, ice surface temperature) sea surface temperature, sea surface salinity, wind vector over the ocean surface, snow parameters, soil moisture, land surface temperature, vegetation indices, and atmospheric water parameters serving all of the Copernicus Services.

This paper reviews the current status of the CIMR mission, now in Phase B2, the anticipated performance of primary mission Level-2 products that will be provided.

As part of the Copernicus Programme, the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA), are expanding the Copernicus Space Component to include measurements for anthropogenic CO2 emission monitoring. The greatest contribution to the increase in atmospheric CO2 comes from emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and cement production. In support of well-informed policy decisions and for assessing the effectiveness of strategies for CO2 emission reduction, uncertainties associated with current anthropogenic emission estimates at national and regional scales need to be improved.

Satellite measurements of atmospheric CO2, complemented by in-situ measurements and bottom-up inventories, will enable, by using advanced (inverse) modelling capabilities, the transparent and consistent quantitative assessment of CO2 emissions and their trends at the scale of megacities, regions, countries, and at global scale. Such a space capacity, complemented by EUMETSAT development of an operational Ground Segment and data service in place with ECMWF, will provide the European Union with a unique and independent source of information, which can be used to assess the effectiveness of policy measures, and to track their impact towards decarbonising Europe supporting the European Commission’s European Green Deal and meeting national emission reduction targets.

This presentation will provide an overview of the Copernicus CO2 Monitoring (CO2M) mission objectives, the consolidated observational requirements on CO2 and auxiliary measurement capabilities. Operational monitoring of anthropogenic emissions requires high precision CO2 observations (0.7 ppm) with, on average, weekly effective coverage at mid-latitudes. These observations will be obtained from NIR and SWIR radiance spectra at moderate spectral resolution. The measurements will be complemented by (1) aerosol observations, to minimise biases due to incorrect light path corrections, and (2) NO2 observations as tracer for high temperature combustion. Retrieval of CO2 is further facilitated by a cloud imager, to identify measurements contaminated by low clouds and high altitude cirrus. In addition, an update of activities and studies currently undertaken to implement the space component will be presented.

Within the expansion of the Copernicus Sentinel Constellation, the Copernicus Polar Ice and Snow Topography Altimeter (CRISTAL) mission is being developed as a key contribution to Europe’s planned response to the need for monitoring of the polar regions. This need has clearly been identified by an EC-led user consultation process and by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). GCOS has recommended continuation of satellite synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) altimeter missions, like the altimeters on board CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3. CRISTAL will fly to 88° latitude, like CryoSat-2 which is currently in its extended mission phase, therefore ensuring an almost complete coverage of the Arctic Ocean, as well as of the Antarctic ice sheet. CRISTAL will for the first time feature a dual Ku/Ka band SAR altimeter (with interferometric capability on the Ku channel) that enables unprecedented measurements.

The primary objectives of CRISTAL target mainly cryospheric science: measuring and monitoring variability of sea ice thickness and its snow depth, and measuring and monitoring the surface elevation and changes of polar glaciers and ice sheets. CRISTAL will also support applications related to snow cover and permafrost in Arctic regions. In addition to those objectives CRISTAL is expected to contribute significantly to oceanography, like CryoSat-2. CRISTAL will allow observations of global ocean topography up to the polar seas, therefore contributing to global observations of mean sea level, mesoscale and sub-mesoscale currents, wind speed, and significant wave height. This information serves as critical input to operational oceanography and marine forecasting services so it feeds directly into Copernicus’ Marine and Climate Change Services.

In this presentation we will illustrate the advanced technical characteristics of CRISTAL, give an update on its development status (currently in Phase B2) and discuss how this mission extends the heritage of CryoSat-2 over the cryosphere, the oceans and inland waters. We will discuss how the dual-band capability is expected to enable new investigations in the marginal ice zone, in the coastal zone and on surface roughness-related effects, like the sea state bias, and discuss plans for polar campaigns in support of CRISTAL development and cal/val.

The “High Spatio-Temporal Resolution Land Surface Temperature Monitoring (LSTM) Mission” has been identified as one of the Copernicus Expansion Missions. The mission is designed to provide enhanced measurements of land surface temperature in response to presently unfulfilled user requirements related to agricultural monitoring.
High spatio-temporal resolution thermal infrared observations are considered fundamental to the sustainable management of natural resources in the context of agricultural production and with that for global water and food security. Operational land surface temperature (LST) measurements and derived evapotranspiration (ET) are key variables in understanding and responding to climate variability, managing water resources for irrigation and sustainable agricultural production, predicting droughts but also addressing land degradation, natural hazards, coastal and inland water management as well as urban heat island issues. Earth observation (EO) monitoring products based on thermal observations, are therefore considered important for informed policy making, including amongst others the UN Sustainable Development Goals (e.g. SDG 6.4), the UN Convention for Combating Desertification and Land Degradation, the UN Water Strategy, the EU Common Agriculture Policy, the EU Policy Framework on Food Security, the EU Water Framework Directive, the EU 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development and the recent EU Green Deal ambitions.
The existing Copernicus space infrastructure, including in particular the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions, already provides useful information for agricultural applications. Although Sentinel-3 routinely delivers global LST measurements, its limited 1 km spatial resolution does not capture the field-scale variability required for irrigation management, crop growth modelling and reporting on crop water productivity. In view of the foreseen evolution of the Copernicus program, additional high-level observation requirements have been collected by the European Commission as part of a user survey and further assessed at the Copernicus Agriculture and Forestry User Requirement Workshop in 2016, revealing the lack of European spaceborne capability for providing high spatio-temporal resolution Thermal Infrared (TIR) observations . Therefore, a dedicated LSTM mission is foreseen in the frame of the Copernicus expansion with the following mission objectives:
• Primary objective: to enable monitoring evapotranspiration rate at European field scale by capturing the variability of LST (and hence ET) allowing more robust estimates of field scale water productivity
• Complementary objective: to support the mapping and monitoring of a range of additional services benefitting from TIR observations – in particular soil composition, urban heat islands, coastal zone management and High-Temperature Events.

The LSTM mission will deploy two satellites equipped with TIR instruments optimised to support agriculture management services with the specific mission objectives above. In response to the priority user needs, the Mission Requirements Document (MRD) for the space component has been developed by an international Mission Advisory Group under European Space Agency (ESA) leadership . The key observational requirements of the LSTM mission, as outlined in the MRD, are systematic global acquisitions of high-resolution (50 meters) observations with a high revisit frequency (1-3 days) in 3-5 thermal bands (8-12.5 m) accompanied with a number of VNIR-SWIR spectral bands. The accuracy for LST measurements shall be better than 1-1.5 K at a 300 K reference temperature. The MRD serves as input for the mission design, by conveying the EU Policy framework, the user needs, the mission objectives and the observation requirements for each Copernicus candidate mission.
ESA is collaborating with partner space agencies to create synergy with relevant international missions such as TRISHNA (CNES, ISRO), Surface Biology Geology SBG (NASA/JPL) and the Landsat program (USGS/NASA) with the aim to achieve the optimal temporal coverage of high-resolution thermal observations.
This presentation will provide an overview of the proposed Copernicus LSTM mission including the user requirements, a technical system concept overview, Level-1/Level-2 core products description and a range of use cases addressing the mission objectives. The LSTM mission has started its phase B2 and successfully placed a contract in late 2020 with an industrial consortium led by Airbus Spain. In spring 2021 the mission successfully passed the System Requirements Review.

1 Agriculture & Forestry Applications User Requirements Workshop Report (2016): http://workshop.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/content/attachments/form-WfbHTJJLH6suSlxf09G4p6pXsUAIEArRc76DBmZ3lDA/agri_forestry_ws_final_report.pdf
2 LSTM Mission Requirements Document, version 3: https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Copernicus_High_Priority_Candidates

The Radar Observing System for Europe at L-band (ROSE-L) is part of the Copernicus Expansion Programme which focuses on new missions that have been identified by the European Commission (EC) as priorities for implementation in the coming years. ROSE-L provides additional capabilities above and beyond those of the current Sentinel missions, filling observation gaps as well new and emerging user needs not yet addressed.
ROSE-L is a user driven mission. By filling important observation gaps in the current Copernicus satellite constellation, the ROSE-L mission supports key European policy objectives and provides enhanced continuity for a number of Copernicus services and down-stream commercial and institutional users. Due to the longer wavelength, L-Band SAR observations from space provide additional information that cannot be gathered by other means benefiting a variety of services and applications.

A high-level mapping between specific European policy objectives and the unique information provided by the mission is provided below. The mission will contribute inter alia to:
- The safety of European Citizens by greatly extending the monitoring of geohazards linked with surface motion such as landslides, subsidence and earthquake/volcanic phenomena into vegetated areas which are inaccessible to current Copernicus satellites and will be critical to the nascent European Ground Motion Service (EU-GMS);
- The European Arctic policy and the sustainable economic development of the Arctic region by providing new information sea ice types and detection of icebergs critical to safe navigation and building of infrastructure in Arctic areas;
- Forestry and maintaining biodiversity through the continuous high-resolution monitoring of changes in global forest carbon stocks and their spatial distribution;
- Agriculture and food security by providing reliable high-resolution soil moisture information to support improved management of water use, enhances weather-independent land cover and crop information, feeding meteorological and hydrological forecast models;
- EU Water Framework Directive through mapping of water availability and water use particularly for agriculture;
- Climate change policy through the enhanced monitoring of glaciers and ice sheets, forest carbon stocks and changes with time and water availability;
- The European Union Integrated Maritime Policy by extending the capacity to monitor our marine ecosystem and by increasing our maritime surveillance abilities.

In terms of user level information products the ROSE-L mission includes the following
- Line-of-sight surface motion addressing deformation measurements, urban subsidence, landslides, flooding
- Forest above ground biomass, forest area, forest change, land cover maps, crop type and status products to support Land use, Land use change, forestry and agriculture
- Soil moisture at regional and global scale to support improved weather forecasts, hydrology and water management
- Sea ice type, sea ice concentration, sea ice motion, glacier/ice cap surface velocity, grounding line and snow water equivalent (SWE) in support of Cryosphere and Arctic application needs
- Wind and wave spectrum information over oceans for regular forecast, EMR and extreme events
- Vessel detection oil spill mapping and ice berg detection in support of maritime security

The requirements and implementation of the ROSE-L SAR mission cannot be considered in isolation but need to build on existing and planned Copernicus observation capabilities and new commercial/NewSpace SAR developments to derive maximum benefits for users and services. Observational gaps filled by ROSE-L requires careful combination of the new information with information provided by existing Sentinel missions. The enhanced continuity also requires harmonised, coordinated and systematic acquisitions in conjunction with other Sentinel data, and in particular those provided by the C-band radar aboard Sentinel-1.

The ROSE-L SAR instrument will operate in L-band, i.e. in the frequency range from 1.215 to 1.300 GHz. The L-band SAR instrument will be able to operate in SAR modes suitable for imaging land and coastal areas, as well as sea-ice and open ocean. Derived from the high-level mission objectives, the SAR instrument of the ROSE-L mission is currently based on three main imaging modes:
- Dual-polarisation (co- and cross-polarisation)
- Fully-polarimetric
- Wave Mode.

The dual- polarisation mode represents the nominal “work-horse” imaging mode of ROSE-L, to enable systematic imaging over global land and ice, with a focus on Europe. It combines a large swath with high resolution and high quality imaging specifications e.g. -28 dB NESZ. This mode meets most user requirements in the various application areas supported by the ROSE-L mission. By selecting a main mode of operation, conflicting requests from users and corresponding gaps in acquisitions are avoided and a consistent and complete archive of data to support long-term assessments of trends is secured.

ROSE-L is implemented as a 3-axis stabilized satellite based on the new Thales Alenia Space Multi-Mission Platform product line (MILA) and will embark the L-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Instrument dedicated to the day-and-night monitoring of land, ice and oceans offering improved revisit time, full polarimetry, high spatial resolution, high sensitivity, low ambiguity ratios and capability for repeat-pass and single-pass cross-track interferometry. It is based on a 5-panel deployable 11 m × 3.6 m L-Band, highly innovative and lightweight planar Phased Array Antenna (PAA). The satellite will also carry a set of three Monitoring Cameras (CAM) to monitor the deployment of the SAR antenna and the solar arrays.