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As part of the Copernicus programme of the European Commission (EC), the European Space Agency (ESA) has developed and is currently operating the Sentinel-2 mission that is acquiring high spatial resolution optical imagery. This article provides a description of the calibration activities and the status of the mission products validation activities after one year in orbit. Measured performances, from the validation activities, cover both Top-Of-Atmosphere (TOA) and Bottom-Of-Atmosphere (BOA) products. The presented results show the good quality of the mission products both in terms of radiometry and geometry and provide an overview on next mission steps related to data quality aspects.

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The Copernicus programme is a European initiative for the implementation of information services dealing with environment and security, based on observation data received from Earth Observation (EO) satellites and ground based information. Within this context, ESA is responsible in particular, for the implementation of the Copernicus Sentinel missions, feeding the Copernicus services with operational EO data. The Sentinel-2 optical high-resolution imaging mission will be devoted to the operational and systematic monitoring of land and coastal areas.To maximize the products suitability and readiness to downstream usage for the majority of applications, the Sentinel-2 Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS) will systematically generate, archive and distribute Level-1C products, which will provide Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA) reflectance images, orthorectified using a global Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and projected on Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system. A Level-1B product will also be available for expert users, providing radiance images in sensor geometry together with an appended geometric model.Additionally, a complementary atmospheric correction and enhanced cloud screening algorithm is being prototyped. This processor will allow converting the Level-1C TOA reflectance image into Bottom-of-Atmosphere (BOA) reflectance. The processor will be provided as plug-in software of the Sentinel-2 Toolbox that will run on user side.During the operational phase, the Sentinel-2 Mission Performance Centre (MPC), as integrating part of the mission ground segment, will be in charge of ensuring that mission performances are met in terms of data quality through the calibration and validation activities.

In partnership with the European Commission and in the frame of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program, the European Space Agency (ESA) is developing the Sentinel-2 optical imaging mission devoted to the operational monitoring of land and coastal areas. The Sentinel-2 mission is based on a satellites constellation deployed in polar sun-synchronous orbit. Sentinel-2 will offer wide improvements such as a unique combination of global coverage with a wide field of view (290km), a high revisit (5 days with two satellites), a high resolution (10m, 20m and 60m) and multi-spectral imagery (13 spectral bands in visible and shortwave infra-red domains). In this context, the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) supports ESA to define the system image products and to prototype the relevant image processing techniques.