The Earthnet Data Assessment Pilot Project: Paving the Way for New Space Players
Authors: Hunt Samuel , Fox Nigel , Halsall Kevin , Melchiorre Andrea , Saunier Sébastien , Piro Alessandro , Giudici Davide , Albinet Clément , Boccia Valentina , Goryl Philippe 
Published: March 2020

&lt;p&gt;In recent years, the increasing range of applications of Earth Observation data products and availability of low-cost satellites has resulted in an increasing number of commercial satellite systems. These services may provide complementary capabilities to those of Space Agencies.&amp;#8239; Adoption of these data products for many applications requires that they meet an assured level of quality that is fit for the given purpose.&amp;#8239; For the most efficient exploitation of EO data,&amp;#8239; therefore, &amp;#8239;assessment of data quality, calibration and validation are indispensable tasks,&amp;#8239; forming&amp;#8239; the basis for reliable scientific conclusions.&amp;#8239;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this context, the&amp;#160;European Space&amp;#8239; Agency&amp;#160;has established the&amp;#160;Earthnet&amp;#8239; Data Assessment Pilot &amp;#8239;(EDAP)&amp;#160;project, which&amp;#160;aims to enable maximum exploitation of&amp;#160;growing&amp;#160;data availability&amp;#160;by&amp;#160;performing&amp;#160;early data assessment for various missions that fall into one of the following instrument domains&amp;#160;number of&amp;#8239; missions, in&amp;#8239;the Optical, SAR and atmospheric&amp;#8239; domains.&amp;#8239;These assessments&amp;#160;are&amp;#160;intended to&amp;#160;evaluate and report the quality of a satellite mission with respect to what is&amp;#160;&amp;#8220;fit for purpose&amp;#8221; within the context of the&amp;#160;its&amp;#160;stated performance and application.&amp;#8239;This activity compliments similar activities from other international partners, including NASA.&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Such quality information&amp;#160;is often&amp;#8239; communicated to users&amp;#8239; in an ill-defined&amp;#160;or&amp;#160;incomplete manner.&amp;#8239; We show the development of a&amp;#160;generic&amp;#160;satellite mission quality assessment framework,&amp;#160;developed within EDAP, which is&amp;#160;designed&amp;#8239; provide&amp;#160;a&amp;#8239; thorough&amp;#8239; review&amp;#8239; of &amp;#8239;all important &amp;#8239;aspects of &amp;#8239;mission quality.&amp;#160;The&amp;#160;assessment&amp;#160;results&amp;#160;are&amp;#8239; conveye d&amp;#8239;ata top &amp;#8239;level &amp;#8239;to the user &amp;#8239;as a quality assessment matrix diagram.&amp;#8239;The framework &amp;#8239;itself &amp;#8239;is based on &amp;#8239;the principles of CEOS QA4EO (Quality Assurance for Earth Observation)&amp;#8239; and&amp;#8239; builds&amp;#8239; on the experience&amp;#8239; of &amp;#8239;several &amp;#8239;European projects that worked towards&amp;#8239; practically &amp;#8239;implementing them.&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a wider context,&amp;#8239; such a&amp;#8239; framework has&amp;#8239; potential for&amp;#8239; more general use &amp;#8239;in&amp;#160;both institutional and&amp;#160;commercial&amp;#160;Earth Observation &amp;#8239;&amp;#8211;&amp;#8239; helping &amp;#8239;mission providers&amp;#8239; to understand&amp;#8239; the &amp;#8239;information their&amp;#8239; users &amp;#8239;need and&amp;#8239; empowering &amp;#8239;users &amp;#8239;to make informed decisions about which data is fit for their purpose.&amp;#8239; As such,&amp;#160;there is&amp;#160;potential for&amp;#160;international collaboration,&amp;#160;between space agencies,&amp;#160;to synergise quality&amp;#160;assessment&amp;#160;approaches&amp;#160;and to work towards the development of a common standard.&lt;/p&gt;