TROPOMI, A Stepping Stone for Global Troposphere Monitoring

Accurate Earth Observation measurements can only be achieved by multi-spacecraft missions. One example is the Sentinels constellation where five satellites will cover the full spectrum of Earth Observation tasks: all-weather imagery (Sentinel 1), land observation (Sentinel 2), marine services (Sentinels 3), weather forecast (Sentinel 4), and atmospheric chemistry (Sentinel 5). The synergic operation of this constellation will constitute an important element of the European system “Global Monitoring for Environment and Security”. A co-operation between ESA and NSO has been set to deploy a precursor of the Sentinel-5 mission. The satellite will embark TROPOMI an instrument designed to reach the goal of boosting performance two orders of magnitude with respect to missions in operation. The mission, with its dual role of technology demonstrator and operative element of the GMES, poses unprecedented challenges: a tight schedule to achieve in-orbit demonstration and a complex procurement to respect the industrial return of the participating nations. TROPOMI uses groundbreaking technologies to bring spatial resolution, global coverage and measurement accuracy to unmatched levels. This paper presents an overview of the mission and describes the technologies developed to achieve the mission objectives. The innovations used in TROPOMI are at their early stage of development and may lead to revolutionary architectures.