Laboratory for
Climatology and Remote Sensing

Abstract:

The EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program) satellite, launched on 1 April 2022, is designed to provide high-resolution imaging spectroscopy data for environmental monitoring, resource management and land use mapping. The integrity and quality of the official data products are assessed by the mission's external product validation activities, which are independent of the calibration/validation activities from the ground segment.The external validation is intended to assess, monitor, and report the quality of the L1B (top-of-atmosphere radiance in sensor coordinates), L1C (top-of-atmosphere radiance in map coordinates), and L2A (surface reflectance in map coordinates) user products. This work presents an overview of the EnMAP product validation activities during the commissioning phase and the first two years of the operational phase. Radiometric, spectral, geometric, and general uniformity aspects are evaluated with scene-based analysis methods and through comparison with ground-based reference methods. We find that EnMAP's radiometric calibration is <5%, both smile and keystone are <20% of a pixel, and the Bottom-Of-Atmosphere (BOA) reflectance and Normalized Water-Leaving reflectance are well inside the mission requirements. These results confirm that the EnMAP products fulfill the mission requirements and pave the way for the scientific exploitation and use of the EnMAP products for land, water, and atmospheric applications.