Copernicus POD Service

The service is in charge of the generation of precise orbital products and auxiliary data files for their use as part of the processing chains of the respective Sentinel Production Services (PSs). These products are generated and delivered with various timeliness (ie near real-time, short-time critical, non-time critical and reprocessing) to satisfy the needs of each Sentinel mission. External users may also make use of these products, which are routinely uploaded to the ESA Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem webpage.

The CPOD Service is a service developed and operated by GMV with a system based on FocusPOD software and running on a cloud-based environment.

The service interfaces with numerous internal and external entities to get the required Level-0 data and to deliver the generated products. The figure below provides an overview of all interfaces involved with the CPOD Service. Each interface has a brief explanation of the products exchanged between the two entities linked.

Satisfying timeliness and accuracy constraints is paramount for the CPOD Service. To this end, the service includes several quality control verifications and validation activities of the generated products to ensure their correctness and performance. These activities go from routine monitoring of the service to extensive regular service reports performed every four months and made available through the ESA SentiWiki webpage. Examples of routing monitoring or data given in the reports are: orbit and attitude comparisons against external entities, satellite laser range validation (for those missions including a laser retro-reflector as satellite’s payload), altimetry crossover analysis (for altimetry missions), geographical and spectral analyses, and GNSS sensor performance of each GNSS receiver. The Copernicus POD Quality Working Group (QWG), a dedicated group of experts in POD who provide independent POD solutions, is key for being able to perform such analyses. From the use of their solutions together with the precise solutions generated by the CPOD Service, a combined solution is generated to be used as reference for the comparison of the different solutions in the frame of the evaluation of the orbit accuracy.

Further information about the contribution of the CPOD Service to the Copernicus programme, the products generated, their quality, POD-related documentation and other relevant information may be found on the SentiWiki webpage.