Maximilian Brell, Philipp Reiners, Luis Guanter, Karl Segl, Sabine Chabrillat, Daniel Scheffler, Mariana A. Soppa, Niklas Bohn, Javier Gorroño, Alexander Kokhanovsky, Astrid Bracher, Martin Bachmann, Miguel Pato, Mathias Schneider, R. de los Reyes, Maximilian Langheinrich, Stefanie Holzwarth, E. Carmona, Tobias Storch, Nicole Pinnel, Martin Habermeyer, Raymond Kokaly, Cindy Ong, R Green, José Moreno, Ferran Gascon, Tobias Hank, Eyal Ben‐Dor, Biagio Di Mauro, Roberto Colombo, Robert Milewski, Benjamin Brede, Thomas Schmid, Cody Anderson, Anke Schickling, V. Krieger, M Bock, L. La Porta, Sebastian Fischer
The EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program) satellite, launched on 1 April 2022, is designed to provide high-resolution imaging spectroscopy data for environmental monitoring, resource management and land use mapping. The integrity and quality of the official data products are ensured by the mission's product validation activities, which are intended to assess, monitor, and report the quality of the L1B (top-of-atmosphere radiance in sensor coordinates), L1C top-of-atmosphere radiance in map coordinates), and L2A (surface reflectance in map coordinates) user products. This work presents an overview of the EnMAP product validation activities during the commissioning phase and the first part of the operational phase. Radiometric, spectral, geometric, and general uniformity aspects are evaluated with scene-based analysis methods and through comparison with ground-based reference methods. We find that EnMAP's radiometric calibration is <5%, both smile and keystone are <20% of a pixel, and the Bottom-Of-Atmosphere (BOA) reflectance and Normalized Water-Leaving reflectance are well inside the mission requirements. These results confirm that the EnMAP products fulfill the mission requirements and pave the way for the scientific exploitation of EnMAP and for the use of the EnMAP products.