Since its launch on April 1, 2022, the German environmental satellite missionEnMAP( Environmental M apping and A nalysis P rogram), which is managed by the German Space Agency in the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Bonn on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK), spent a good month in space and has now delivered the first high-resolution satellite images. After the mission had successfully completed the “Launch and Early Orbit Phase”, the individual subsystems of the highly complex hyperspectral instrument were brought under the control of theGerman Space Operations Center(GSOC) put into operation. Now, for the first time, EnMAP has recorded a strip about 30 kilometers wide and 180 kilometers long over Istanbul on the Bosporus in Turkey with Europe and Asia and then sent the data down to earth via the DLR ground station in Neustrelitz.
“Even the first data from EnMAP show what the German environmental satellite can do,” says Dr. Sebastian Fischer, EnMAP overall project manager in theGerman Space Agency at DLR. The mission is only in the first phase, in which the instrument will be calibrated and precisely adjusted. “However, these first images give us a very good foretaste of what scientists around the world can expect. They show that EnMAP can make a major contribution to showing the consequences of climate change and counteracting the progressive destruction of the environment.”
The first data were received fromGerman Remote Sensing Data Center(DFD) as well as theDLR Institute for Remote Sensing Technologywho also process and archive the images. Because the data that the satellite sends to earth cannot be used directly by the user. Users can only draw quantitative and qualitative statements from the products if they are processed further, i.e. calibrated, provided with location and position determinations and the influences of the atmosphere are corrected. The calibration of these first recordings was carried out with data measured by the instrument in the laboratory. As part of the so-called commissioning phase, which lasts six months, these calibrations will now be optimized for the properties of the instrument in orbit and the data quality will be further improved.
The first EnMAP images make the invisible visible to our eyes
But what is actually visible in the EnMAP images? Every material on the earth’s surface reflects sunlight in a way that is characteristic of it, leaving what is known as a spectral signature. EnMAP can recognize, distinguish and map this “colored fingerprint” with the help of its measuring instrument. The motto of the mission is “Our earth in more than all colors” because each EnMAP image is divided into many small wavelength ranges – much more than our eyes can perceive. “The high quality of the data in all channels is clearly visible on the one hand in typical spectra such as for vegetation and on the other hand in low noise and disturbing image strips with the extensive dynamic range, which is particularly evident in dark areas such as water.
EnMAP – the German environmental mission and its partners
The EnMAP environmental mission is managed by the German Space Agency at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Bonn on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK). OHB-System AG was commissioned to develop and build the satellite and the hyperspectral instrument. The mission is under the scientific direction of the GeoForschungszentrum Potsdam (GFZ).
Three DLR institutes and facilities have been commissioned to set up and operate the ground segment: The German Space Operations Center in Oberpfaffenhofen will carry out and monitor satellite operations. The German Remote Sensing Data Center and the DLR Institute for Remote Sensing Technology will archive, process and validate the satellite data received and make it accessible to science. Companies and authorities will also try out the data and use it to prepare future services. The future use of the EnMAP hyperspectral data by universities and scientific institutions and the development of special applications are supported by BMWK funding programs.