1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Purpose and Scope

The scope of this document is to be used as an annex for the CSC Common Entity Definition Document [RD-2] in order to describe the POD files packaging, as well as the Product Entity Properties, the Product Attributes and the corresponding metadata elements that shall be catalogued and queryable, for all POD files circulating through the ESA EO Framework (EOF) Copernicus Space Component (CSC) [AD-1]. Additionally, the document describes the format of the POD products’ packages and the applicability to each Sentinel constellation.

1.2 Applicable Documents

ID Document Reference Document Title
[AD-1] ESA-EOPG-EOPGC-TN-58 ESA EO Framework (EOF) – CSC - Data Flow Configuration

Table 1-1 – Applicable Documents

1.3 Reference Documents

ID Document Reference Document Title
[RD-1] GMES-GSEG-EOPG-FS-10-0075 Sentinels POD Service File Format Specifications
[RD-2] ESA-EOPG-EOPGC-IF-5 Copernicus Space Component - Common Entity Definition Document
[RD-3] OGC 17-003r0 OGC EO Dataset Metadata GeoJSON(-LD) Encoding Standard
[RD-4] OGC 10-157r4 OGC Earth Observation Metadata profile of Observations & Measurements

Table 1-2 – Reference Documents

1.4 Acronyms, Definitions and Abbreviations

Acronym Description
ADFAuxiliary Data Files
ADGAuxiliary Data Gathering
CSCCopernicus Space Component
DAData Access
EOFESA Earth Observation Framework
GNSSGlobal Navigation Satellite System
GPSRGlobal Positioning System Receiver
ICDInterface Control Document
ILRSInternational Laser Ranging Service
IPFInstrument Processing Facility
JSONJavaScript Object Notation
LTALong Term Archiving
NRTNear Real Time
OSVOrbit State Vectors
PODPrecise Orbit Determination
PRSystematic Production
REPReprocessing timeliness (generated every ~4 months)

Table 1-3 – Acronyms and Abbreviations

2 POD PRODUCTS OVERVIEW

This section presents an overview of the products and auxiliary files used or generated by the Sentinels POD Service with indication on the Sentinel Mission applicability.

The POD Service generates the following products:

  1. POD Orbit Files, i.e. orbit state vectors (OSV) from the orbit determination performed by the Copernicus POD Service based on the GPSR input data.

  2. Auxiliary Files, i.e. products requested by the Production Service to be used in support to the Mission data processing. These include attitude data files.

  3. GNSS Lib files for all Sentinels. These are disseminated via the Data Access (DA) Service.

  4. Quaternions Files for all Sentinels. These are disseminated via the Data Access Service.

The file naming convention, the file formats and the specifications for the files used or generated by the POD Service are described in detail in [RD-1].

File Type Description Timeliness Product Type Format S-1 S-2 S-3 S-6A
POD Orbit
Files
Predicted Orbit FileNRTAUX_PREORB.EOFXX
Restituted Orbit FileNRTAUX_RESORB.EOFXX
Medium Orbit Ephemerides
(MOE) Orbit File
STCAUX_MOEORB.EOF
.SEN3 (for S3)
XX
Precise Orbit Ephemerides
(POE) Orbit File
NTCAUX_POEORB.EOF
.SEN3 (for S3)
XXX
NRT Restituted Orbit FileNRTSR___ROE_AX.SEN3X
SALP MDO Orbit FileSTCSR___MDO_AX.TGZX
SALP POE Orbit FileNTCSR___POE_AX.TGZX
Sentinel-6A NRT Orbit FileNRTAX____ROE__AX.SEN6.tarX
Sentinel-6A SALP MDO Orbit
File
STCAX____MOED_AX.SEN6.tarX
Sentinel-6A SALP POE Orbit
File
NTCAX____POE__AX.SEN6.tarX
Combined Orbit FileREPAUX_COMB.sp3
(plain ASCII file)
XX
Auxiliary
Files for
Sentinels
Preliminary Platform Data for
Sentinel-3
STCAUX_PRLPTF.EOF
.SEN3 (for S3)
X
Precise Platform Data for
Sentinel-3
NTCAUX_PRCPTF.EOF
.SEN3 (for S3)
X
NRT Platform Data for
Sentinel-3
NRTSR_2_NRPPAX.SEN3X
GNSS L1b
Files
Daily GNSS L1b RINEX filesSTCAUX_GNSSRD.TGZXXXX
Quaternions
Files
Processed Quaternions FilesNTCAUX_PROQUA.TGZXXXX

Table 2-1 – POD Service Products and Auxiliary Data Files Overview vs. Sentinels mission

3 POD FILE ENTITY PROPERTIES MAPPING

[RD-2] defines the Generic CSC Common Entity Properties. Table 3-1 provides the mapping between these Generic Product Entity Properties and the Sentinels POD products metadata. Most of the Product Entity Properties do not map directly to the POD File metadata as they are generated by the CSC services.

OData Product Entity Properties Type Description Cardinality Corresponding POD Files Metadata Example
NameStringData file name (according to
the Sentinel file naming
conventions) plus the file
extension
1n/a
Based on file name
S1B_OPER_AUX_GNSSRD_POD__20191124T02
1044_V20191116T235950_20191117T235940.
TGZ
ContentDateTimeRangeThe sensing range period.
Compound property with
start and end times in UTC in
the format YYYY-MM-
DDThh:mm:ss
1Validity_Period /
Validity_Start
Validity_Period /
Validity_Stop
"ContentDate":
{
"Start":"2019-11-16T23:59:50",
"End":"2019-11-17T23:59:40"
}

Table 3-1 – POD File Entity Properties mapping

4 POD FILES ATTRIBUTES MAPPING

All relevant metadata elements of the POD Files shall be indexed in the Product Attributes, additional metadata elements may also be identified if appropriate. In order to provide a harmonised model across the Sentinel missions the JSON property naming from [RD-3] is preferred for the Attributes Names. In case an attribute is not defined in [RD-3] the native naming used in the metadata is preferred. The Product Attributes mapping for the relevant POD Files is described in the Excel file “POD Product Attributes Mapping_v1.0”, which is packaged together with this document. A summary of the POD Product Attributes mapping is presented in Table 4-1 below. It should be highlighted that, in order to harmonise the metadata model across the Sentinel missions, in some cases an “alias” for the value defined in the POD Files metadata is mapped to a standardised value to be used by the EOF CSC services, in other cases a standard value is defined where it is otherwise unavailable from the product.

The External Auxiliary Data follow the data structure presented in section 3.2 of [RD-1]. The attributes for these files are mapped to the xfdumanifest.xml metadata file that is generated when these files are converted to the Sentinel-3 format. Therefore, they follow the structure and metadata of the Sentinel-3 Auxiliary data.

OData Attribute Name POD File Attributes Mapping Applicability
POD Orbit FilesAuxiliary Files
for Sentinels
GNSS L1b FilesQuaternions
Files
PODADGPRLTADA
beginningDateTimexxxxxxxxx
endingDateTimexxxxxxxxx
platformShortNamexxxxxxxxx
platformSerialIdentifierxxxxxxxxx
productTypexxxxxxxxx
processingDatexxxxxxxxx
processingCenterxxxxxxxxx
processorVersionxxxxxxxxx

Table 4-1 – POD File Attributes Mapping Summary